Written by Anita Pleumarom

Dear colleagues and friends,

In today's Clearinghouse, I'd like to share two articles that support the argument that Third World tourism is a form of neo-colonialism. Indeed, looking at the way the corporate tourism industry has been re-shaping the geography of the world, there are good reasons to suggest that tourism from affluent to less developed countries can be compared to the imperialist expansion of the 19th century. But while the old colonial powers overran foreign countries with force, today's conquerors use `neoliberal' logic and more subtle strategies of appropriation, subjugation and exploitation. [According to Richard Peet (2002), the main components of neoliberalism are "privatization, deregulation, and liberalization, all encapsulated within political beliefs about democracy, entrepreneurship, and individual freedom."]  

Anneli Rufus' essay `There's no such thing as ecotourism' serves as a reminder that we should not be deluded by what is offered us as benign `alternatives' to conventional mass tourism. Call it responsible, sustainable, fair, pro-poor, community-based tourism - as long as the `alternative' does not effectively work to change existing political and economic structures and values, it just represents another `exercise in power'. It will yet be one more instrument that poses profit over local values and needs, and, as usual, it will miss out on the goals of more social and ecological justice and empowerment of weak, dependent communities.

What actually happens in the `alternative' set-up is the commodification and marketing of tourists' desire to appropriate foreign places, while the `alternative' tourists see themselves as non-predatory or even as benefactors. In this context it is interesting to see as to how some Western civil society organizations and networks have contributed to create virtual (speak: more acceptable) realities in destinations and to boost tourists' `don't-worry-be-happy' attitude. They suggest, for example, that tourists can enjoy guilt-free holidays in the Third World, by supporting environmentally sustainable/pro-poor/fair trade projects and campaigns designed to make `tourism misery' history.

This way, the tourists can easily convince themselves that they are not just consumers, encroachers, seducers and destroyers in foreign lands, but are helping the poor, supporting them to preserve culture and nature, even contributing to national development. Has the eyewash possibly reached the point that consumers are made believe they are the ideal activists to help save the world through tourism?      

The second article is entitled `Mainstreaming Holiday Sex and the Neo-Colonial Attitude' and written by Franck Michel, who is an anthropologist lecturing at the University of Corsica. Michel suggests that sex tourism is just "an extension of the service aspect of mass tourism, in itself a revival of the old colonial attitudes towards the world."

The experience of travel to far-away places, where any taboo can be easily broken, allows tourists to divest themselves of any sense of responsibility. "For the organized tourist, the Other, the native of colonial times, is there simply to serve and to be exploited," states Michel, adding "There are differences between organized and sexual tourism, but the transition between them can be surprisingly smooth..."

Yours truly,
Anita Pleumarom
Tourism Investigation & Monitoring Team (tim-team)

[A state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would forbid school districts from assessing sport and activity fees, saying a "pay-to-play" charge is an unfair levy on the students' families...."The fees are nothing short of a new and equally onerous tax on families," he said. ]

["This is the worst of times for the Freedom of Information Act in many ways," Paul McMasters of the First Amendment Center, which studies issues of free speech, press and religion, told the AP. ... "The government ignores almost all FOIA requests coming from activists such as myself," Scott Silver, the executive director of Wild Wilderness, an Oregon-based grassroots environmental group, told me in a recent email. "They do not even acknowledge receipt -- not of the original request or of follow up requests asking why the first request was never acted upon. Those who sue the government when it breaks the law may get a little bit better cooperation --- but even that seems to be changing."]

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.     -James Madison

Omission is the most powerful form of lie. -George Orwell

During a war, news should be given out for instruction rather than information. - Joseph Goebbels

 [ It's not the money; it's the principle. What next? Pay-as-you-go public drinking fountains? A fee to breathe fresh air? ]

 [After I teed off Friday on what I consider to be a most un-American and undemocratic tradition - charging people to walk on a public strand of sand - I heard from many just as annoyed as me. They basically had this to say: Just because we pay it doesn't mean we like it.]

 "Don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? ... there would be an American Air-Bottling Association. ... they would let millions die for want of breath, if they could not pay for the air."       
        - Robert G. Ingersoll, 1896

 "The free market means that those without money to buy what they need do not have the right to live."
        - John McMurtry

The attached document came to me by a roundabout route having, apparently, originated from within the NPS. The topic is a soon to be launched national photo-contest touting the all-public-lands  "America the Beautiful Passport". What this is about is marketing travel, marketing public lands and marketing the fee program itself.
http://www.planetjh.com/klobnak_2004_12_01_pay.html

In reading the document,  I noticed a link to www.sharetheexperience.com/ .

That internet domain is owned by:

     SMART Travel Technologies, Inc.
     12 East Stow Road Suite 210
     Marlton, NJ 08053

SMART's primary product is something called "mailpound" --- a tool for creating "extreme travel marketing makeovers" or so they write at
www.travelmarketingmakeover.com/

Put simply, the ARC and FLREA have succeeded in moving the National Park Service and other government agencies into the business of "selling travel". That is the terminology used by the President of SMART
(http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/2002-August/013996.html) (see also appended quote)

Were it not for the ARC ... we'd not be here today.
Were it not for FLREA ... we'd not be here today.

Were it not for these things, the NPS would not now be on a glidepath to ruin.

Scott

PS... Most people know FLREA as ARC's baby. How many know  ARC's stillborn baby ... its 1992 legislation titled -  "To amend the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965 to provide for the establishment of the America the Beautiful Passport to facilitate access to certain federally-administered... (Introduced in House)" and can be read at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c102:HR4690:

When the "Wise-Use" movement was created sixteen years ago, transferring the management of America's National Park System to the Walt Disney Company was listed as item #11 of their 25 point agenda (www.wildwilderness.org/wi/wiseuse.htm) .

In subsequent years, various representatives of the American Recreation Coalition have given Congressional Testimony in which they've called for the use "differential pricing" within the National Parks. The idea, though it is never stated in quite this way, is to provide more enjoyable access for the wealthy park visitors and higher profits to the tourism industry while shooing away those who can not be relied upon to drop big bucks as part of a park visit.
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/archives/105cong/parks/98feb26/crandall.htm http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/peterson.htm

Last month, an economist / columnist for London's conservative Financial Times, combined these ideas. He suggested that the City of Venice could be 'saved' if it were run as a themepark by the Walt Disney Company and if differential pricin were employed.  In explaining how this could be done, he used Yosemite NP as a model.

Imagine what Yosemite would be like if it were operated by the Walt Disney Company and if Disney and the NPS used differential pricing to control use as has long been proposed --- and as is described below.

Scott

 "National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst." -Wallace Stegner, 1983

[Think of it as a pick-up truck on steroids. International Truck and Engine introduced this year the second in the XT line of vehicles in what represents a new target market — the guy next door. Well, maybe with a nine-foot-tall cab, weighing just two pounds short of requiring a Commercial Drivers License to operate and a 70-gallon fuel tank, you won't see the CXT next door unless ...]

In our testimony before this committee in 1995, we outlined a variety of ideas we hoped would be tested by the agencies. The National Park Service, especially, is an important laboratory for this learning. While the fee demo program has produced substantial new receipts for that agency with minor levels of complaints from the public, most of the revenue has been generated from increases in already-existing entrance fees. The agency can and should also consider:

  use of differential pricing between peak and non-peak periods of the year, to encourage shifts of visitations to periods of the year with the capacity to host visitors with minimal social and environmental consequences;

I don't believe I've taken as much flack on any single topic as I have from fellow conservationists on the issue of biofuels. My repeated warning that such fuels have extremely limited potential for solving the world's energy problems has generated significant push-back from people who believe in these products and technologies. Some environmental campaigns are based almost entirely upon the viability of such technology and upon the assumption that greater reliance upon biofuels will protect the environment and the planet.

Pasted below is an editorial from today's Salt Lake Tribune that is short, sweet and on target.

Scott

The appended article begins with the words:  "With the Bush Administration touting ethanol as the great hope for easing gasoline prices, just the opposite is true."

Good grief --- is it possible the Bush Administration fibbed to us?

I do hope that those conservationists who tout ethanol as a savior, will reconsider. And, for what it's worth, cellulosic ethanol isn't going to be a savior either.

I suppose it's attractive to believe that there are going to be quick, easy, painless, supply-side techno-fixes which will let the wheels keep turning until they grind to a halt.

Scott 

On this day, almost every newspaper in America features an article with a headline that reads something like this:

          "White House Faces Opposition to User Fees"

Almost every article begins with the words...

         "President Bush hates new taxes, that's for sure."

I disagree.

User-fees are taxes. They are regressive taxes. They are the kind of taxes favored by those who profess the so-called "Ownership Society".  The Ownership Society, however, is only code for saying "The Greed Society"  --- and today the Greed Society rules.

President Bush may hate those taxes levied upon big corporations and the ultra-rich, but he has no hesitancy sticking it to everyone else. He does so at every opportunity. Today's news story about User-Fees is BIG NEWS because it helps tell a story that needs to be told. It's a story I've been telling for nearly a decade.

In 1997, on the Wild Wilderness website, I published the following words in a document titled "The Future of Public Lands Recreation"

 Unnecessary and inappropriate budget cuts to recreation programs were orchestrated by Murkowski and Hansen so as to create an apparent maintenance crisis for federally managed recreation lands and facilities. The rescue of a visibly decaying public system by ARC's private investors and corporate sponsors is the intended outcome. Fee-Demo does not exist to raise needed funding for trail and facility maintenance. It exists to circumvent and eventually repeal the long-standing legal prohibitions upon the charging for recreation on federally managed lands.

What had been an effort lead by Frank Murkowski in the Senate and Jim Hansen in the House, has become a top priority for George W. Bush. Today, the Bush administration is starving all functions of government in order TO CREATE a crisis. The Bush administration is destroying the American economy in order TO ACHIEVE  a particular outcome.

In the late 90s, few rose up in opposition to User-Fees. In the mid 00s, will the public rise up, or will they accept their fate passively...

.... or so I wonder??

Scott

     Don't you know that if people could bottle the air, they would? ... there would be an American Air-Bottling Association. ... they would let millions die for want of breath, if they could not pay for the air. -- Robert G. Ingersoll, 1896

PS... the many other news stories you've recently read about the President's Budget and his specific proposal to sell National Forest lands are all directly related to the issue I've spoken of here.

Quoted from appended commentary, published in today's Toledo Blade.

Lots of little user fees and sales taxes don't break the bank of the governor's core constituency - which is why he can promote them with impunity. They will hurt the have-nots at the bottom of the socio-economic totem pole who scrimp to survive.

That is a reality some try to deny. Federal lands managers, for example, refuse to accept that recreation user fees are discriminatory and exclusionary, or that such fees impact low-incomes persons far more than they impact the wealthy. Ohio's State Park managers are likely to deny this reality as, of course, was Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) who forced his Recreation Access Tax upon an unwilling America.

Perhaps now that the user-fee issue has blown up in size and encompasses so much more than the original fee-demo battle, the American public will show some understanding and compassion as did the author of the appended commentary.

Then again, it's possibly that as President Bush promotes his "ownership society" message, middle-income persons will stampede over one another desperately trying to get beyond the masses of fellow 'non-owners' and break into the ranks of the "haves."

What fools and dreamers such people are if they think that by beating back their fellow travelers they can somehow hope to enjoy the fruits of Bush's ownership society.

Then again ... what fools are those who think that their incomes, however high they may be, quality them to as "haves" in Mr. Bush's neo-Feudalist Society.

Scott

The appended article from Honolulu recreates, in précis, almost the entire user-fee continuum. It starts with underfunding of critical public facilities and the construction of optional infrastructure for which maintenance dollars are not provided. It moves to acknowledge that a fiscal 'crisis' exists and then seeks to impose the standard twin solutions of 'user-fees' and 'partnerships.' It even throws in the 'luring international visitors' option, common for the National Parks but not so frequently used elsewhere. It rejects the 'increase taxes' solution though it acknowledges that further 'tax relief' may need to be delayed. The only thing this article fails to mention is the privatization end-point.

These days the scenario is always the same. The steps toward privatization have become standardized and the process is being applied to EVERYTHING, everywhere. The American Commons is being sold down the river and with it the American Dream. Call it the "Ownership Society."

Those who understand this progression have a duty to share their knowledge with those who do not. The fact that this article fails to mention the privatization end-point represents our failure as much as the failure of the reporter who omitted to give the punchline in her article.

Scott

Quoted from appended article:

 But something more is happening. Like a lot of government- run public attractions nowadays -- historic homes, zoos, some national parks -- the Mall seems increasingly run for the convenience of its caretakers rather than the pleasure of its guests.

   As a coalition report put it last year: "Maintenance and security concerns have begun to take priority over the deeper meaning of the Mall. We are heading toward a kind of 'Disneyland' on the Potomac, where tourists move from monument to monument by tour bus."

For more than seven years I have spoken of the "commercialization, privatization and motorization of our public lands", "the Corporate Takeover of Nature" and "the Disneyfication of the Wild." The appended article hits upon each of those points, but as foul a picture as the appended article paints, the ultimate fate of the Washington Mall is going to be worse and possibly very much worse.

In one vision, I see the Mall being further Disneyfied along the lines described in this article. That seems to be the fate awaiting virtually all of our National Parks. In another vision, I see the Washington Mall being commercialized and privatized along the specific lines of  Bryant Park in New York City --- as a meeting place where young professionals can sip their lattes and dry-martinis and where the city's poor are unwelcome. In still another, I see the Mall being rented out to corporate interests as it was to the National Football League in the fall of 2003 during which a variety of dubious political programs such as "Take Pride in America" were subtly promoted. In a still darker vision, I see the Washington Mall being used and abused by those in power to stage events that explicitly advance  particular political agendas and which actively stifle the speech of those who do not support that agenda. The handling of last week's Inauguration Ceremony is a perfect example.

Yet I have a much darker potential vision for the Washington Mall. It is one that haunts me and which grows more real with every passing day. It is a vision befitting of Albert Speer, first architect of the Third Reich.  I'm sure you know the image.

From Disneyland to Fascism ---- is that really such a large leap???

Scott

November 11, 2004

> I am interested in someone filling me in on the purpose and origin of the National Forest foundation.  Is it governmental?

Scott replied:

Yes, it is governmental. It was recreated by the National Forest Foundation Act 16 U.S.C. §§ 583j - 583j-8, November 16, 1990, and amended 1993.

The National Forest Foundation is one of several analogous foundations created at about the same time. Others include the National Parks Foundation, the National Environmental Education Training Foundation and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation. All are, in my opinion, "Black Hat". NEETF is perhaps the very worst of the bunch http://www.neetf.org --- they are Astroturf at it's very worst. NPF is the most commercially offensive of them all http://www.nationalparks.org. NPF has degraded into  a marketing ploy (and tax avoidance scheme) for it's five major corporate sponsors Ford, Kodak, Time, Discovery and American Airlines.

Here's the basic authorization info for the NFF:

    NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ACT 16 U.S.C. §§ 583j - 583j-8, November 16, 1990, as amended 1993.

    Overview. This Act establishes a National Forest Foundation to benefit the activities of the U.S. Forest Service.

    Establishment and Purposes of Foundation. The Act establishes a non-profit National Forest Foundation to encourage, accept and administer private gifts of money and property for the benefit of the U.S. Forest Service, and to conduct activities that further the purposes and programs of the National Forest System. The Foundation is governed by a 15-member Board of Directors, a majority of whom must have education or experience in natural or cultural resource management, law or research, and must represent diverse points of view relating to natural and cultural resource issues. Foundation activities are supplemental to and do not preempt any authority or responsibility of the U.S. Forest Service. §§ 583j-583j-7.

    Appropriations Authorized. For administrative services and support for the Foundation, Congress authorized to be appropriated $1,000,000. During the 5-year period beginning October 1992, Congress authorized $1,000,000 annually to the Secretary of Agriculture to be made available to the Foundation to match private contributions on a one-for-one basis. § 583j-8.

> If so, why does our government sponsor a "tax deductible" foundation?

You've asked the correct question.

The idea behind each of these foundations was that Congress would NOT give tax money directly to the National Park Service, US Forest Service or US Fish and Wildlife Service. It would starve the allocated budgets for these agencies and FORCE them to seek privatized solutions. Congress would instead make that tax money available to these agencies ONLY when matched by a non-federal contribution. The promoters of these foundations would say that by doing this they were "leveraging tax dollars and making them go further."

In reality, each and every one of these foundations were part of the Reagan (and then George Bush Sr.) efforts to defederalize government. They are, each and every one, efforts to promote privatization, to give tax breaks to corporate sponsors and to use and abuse the enormous goodwill the US public has for the iconic images of our National Parks and other public treasures.

Instead of funding the agencies directly, Congress has begun moving tax dollars into programs that allow the agencies to access that money ONLY in partnership with other entities. In fact, the NFF's website stated clearly in BOLD type:

The NFF MAP does not support projects that are seeking general operating support or cannot produce at least a 1:1 non-federal cash match.

So if anyone is thinking about getting a $50,000 grant from the NFF, do understand that you're going to have to spend $50,000 of your own money in support of work that the USFS should be doing in the first place!

For an analogous situation consider of the Recreation Trails Program or TEA-21. Through these boondoggles,  a private sector "partner" can put up a mere 5% of the cost of a project and make a grant proposal. The highway department will put up 80% of the project cost and, another federal agency can put up the rest.  In practice what this means is that the USFS has no money with which to do projects and has been told that they must be responsible to potential partnerships. So when the local snowmobile club wants to purchase a new groomer, they simply go to the USFS and say "Hey Mr. Forest Ranger. How'd you like to be able to report to Congress that even without proper funding, you're able to get works done. We'll put up $5000 toward the $100,000 purchase price of a new groomer if you'll partner with us and put up another $15,000. Together we'll apply for an $80,000 grant from the Federal Highway Administration Authority and with the $100,000 we'll but a new groomer that with which the XYZ snowmobile club will groom USFS trails".

The USFS is PROHIBITED from directly applying to the FHWA for a grant. Federal land management agency MUST have a private partner in order to access these new pots of money. And this is how privatization works. NFF is, as I've tried to make clear, little more than a privatization tool.

So getting back to the question posed at the start of this reply, "why does our government sponsor a "tax deductible" foundation?" --- it does so in order to DEPRIVE the agencies of direct access to tax dollars paid by the American people  and to force a privatization agenda upon those agencies.

Now please note that the American Recreation's President, Derrick Crandall was the President of the National Forest Foundation until February 17, 1995. For $2, I was able to purchase that documentation from the Commonwealth of Virginia State Corporation Commission.  I believe it helps one's understanding to know that the wise-use movement is solidly behind these Congressionally approved programs.

Please also note that the National Forest Foundation is a big booster of ARC's policies. Both the NFF and the NPF are great boosters of fee-demo. They are an enormous booster of partnerships.... which now makes them boosters of the free-market ideologues that have seized control of our Federal Government.

Perhaps the most controversial partnership the NFF has engaged in was cutting a deal with Subaru in which the FS got the use of 34 new Subaru "Forester" vehicles and Subaru got the exclusive commercial use of Smokey Bear.  NFF was desperately in need of private sector money to match the federal dollars Congress has given them. NFF was so desperate, they cut a deal that created a scandal which almost brought about their demise. In fact, in the aftermath of this scandal, the NFF website was taken off the internet and remained down for 18 months during which time the NFF underwent a major overhaul.

You can, and I hope will, read the congressionally testimony of Testimony of Roger C. Viadero, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Agriculture about this scandal at this link.

Viadero pulled few punches. I try to pull few punches.

Scott 

Pasted below are two pieces of info of importance to watersports recreation on public lakes, especially those managed by the National Park Service. They are related and here's something important to keep in mind as you read 'em. Knowing this will help understand the significant of what is reported below.

Forever Resorts is privately owned by ARC's Board Treasurer, Rex Maughan. Maughan is also the chairman or president of National Parks Hospitality Association (a concessionaire trade association) and happens to operate the concession on a dozen or so public lakes, including Lake Mead.

Outside Las Vegas Foundation is also closely associated with the ARC. OLVF is being used as a model for a great many public- private- partnership arrangements. OLVF is, I offer, an outfit that needs to be on every conservationist's radar screen. Why, so I wonder, is ARC being asked to create (and perhaps fund) the writing DOI literature??? Why give the private sector such control????

Scott

"Sport Utility Owners of America' (SUVOA) is a public-relations campaign run from the Washington DC offices of Strat@comm / Fleishman-Hillard. SUVOA describes itself as "a nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to supporting the rights and serving the interests of SUV owners. Two days ago, SUVOA issued the appended press release announcing their launch of a campaign that portrays environmentalists and the California Air Resources Board as clowns. What they did not explain is WHO they are or HOW this campaign meshes with other similar anti-environmental efforts.

Look at SUVOA's Board of Directors www.suvoa.com/about and you discover that everyone except their newly-hired President (Barry McCahill, a PR expert) is a member of the powerful American Recreation Coalition (ARC) www.wildwilderness.org/docs/arcmem2.htm. SUVOA's board includes ARC's own President, Derrick Crandall and ARC's Founder and Chairman, David Humphreys. Do a little snooping and you'll discover that Crandall is, or has been, on the Boards of "Foundation for Clean Air Progress" (FPAC)  and "Coalition for Vehicle Choice" (CVC).

FCAP is a PR campaign run by the firm of Burson-Marsteller. Their message explains that air quality is improving and regulations can be lifted. CVC is a PR campaign run by the firm of Fleishman-Hillard. Their message includes a broad attack upon those trying to fight Global Warming. FCAP is a covert campaign. CVC is a strident, in-your-face, anti-environmental effort.

What is important to appreciate is that Crandall and Humphreys represent the interests of all forms of motorized recreation, from motorhomes to jetskis, from snowmobiles to cabin-cruisers from off-roading to cruising America's byways. These two are America's most prominent and influential defenders of the rights of every man to burn just as much petroleum as he or she can afford. Crandall has testified before congress in support of drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, saying that motorized recreationists and the tourism industry need cheap oil. Both Crandall and Humphreys have testified before congress in support of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program --- a program for which THEY have taken full credit.

So what's the connection between fee-demo and all of ARC's other motorized interests?? Simple. Fee-demo is about buying access to public lands. Anyone willing to pay will get to play. No motorized recreationist will ever be left behind, so long as he is willing to buy his access. Knowing what you now know, please read the following news release.

Scott