There appeared an interesting article on forest volunteerism in Sunday's Seattle-PI under the headline "Volunteers fill void in repair of hiking trails." Here is a short quote:

"Volunteers have always been part of the Forest Service, but the government is now relying on donated time to do jobs that were once solely the domain of professional crews. It is a paradigm shift for a bureaucracy that for more than a century has depended on trained staff and federal taxes to take care of the woods."

A paradigm shift is taking place and for the past decade I have attempted to expose the reality of that shift so that citizens could have some input as to whether, or not, this is a desirable shift.

Today's emphasis upon volunteerism is, I would offer, really not about filling a void as the headline implies. Volunteerism is primarily a mechanism for change. It is being used as a tool by those responsible for advancing the underlying ideological paradigm shift.

Had the public understood that an ideologically-driven paradigm shift was, in fact, being forced upon the Forest Service (and upon all branches of, and services provided by, government), many of today's volunteers might have choose NOT to facilitate the shift. They might have chosen instead to actively resist the shift and fight for the preservation of government of, by and for the people.

Volunteerism is at its roots,  a wonderful thing. Volunteerism is being used as a tool by those whose have been manipulating the dominant America paradigm and creating in its stead, an "ownership society" in which the government provides few if any public benefits and which exists largely to transfer the wealth and labor of citizens into the pockets of the wealthy and into corporate coffers.

Volunteers are doing their best to fill the void created by those who are bringing about this paradigm shift. To the extent that they fill the void, their efforts confirm the underlying belief of the privatizers that government simply is unnecessary and that government need not provide for the needs of citizens.

Personally, as much as I appreciate the work of volunteers, I wish they better appreciated what is happening and how they are being used and abused by those who are seeking to shrink, and eventually drown-in-the-tub, government.

Scott
 

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