NON-OFFICIAL EXPRESSION
Recently, the intermountain Region of the National Park Service decided to uplift the ethics and morals of its staff with a 19 rule memo issued of September 16, 2002.
One of the rules concerned "non-official expression". It states "Employees who are writing or speaking on a topic which is generally related to their work, are expressing themselves as private citizens and not as representatives of the Department, are communicating under the concept of non-official expression, regardless of whether they are receiving payment for it. A notice of intention to publish non-official expression and certificate of compliance must be submitted through proper channels to the Regional Public Affairs officer to the Assistant Regional Director, Human Resources for approval".
This is a truly amazing ukase as drafted by the Czar of the Intermountain Region. It is difficult to be believe it was issued in the year of Our Lord 2002. It would be unfair to compare it to the works of Senator Joseph McCarthy, as I am sure that "tail gunner Joe" would have denounced it as "going too far, and being (gasp!) un-American!" One would have to go far back in American history, to case of the newspaper editor Peter Zenger, who in 1733 had some unflattering things to say about the Royal Governor of New York.
The Royal Governor made it plain to Mr. Zenger that unless His Worship was allowed to edit future copy, he would edit the editor.
In one of the landmark cases of freedom of speech, the courts decided against the Royal Governor as I am sure the courts will decide against the National Park Service, should a court case ever arise.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has taken note of the Intermountain Region directive and its somewhat incredulous executive director, Jeff Ruch, noted some shortcoming of the Intermountain Directive.
According to Ruch:"Despite appearances to the contrary, Park Service employees remain American citizens with First Amendment Rights". The problems that PEER has with the Intermountain Region Directive are as follows:
1. IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
According to Ruch "While the First Amendment is not without its limitations in a public agency context, employee speech is protected so long as it does not impair the efficient functioning of the public agency.
"The seminal case in this area is Pickering v Board of Education of Township High School District (391 U.S. 563 (1968 ) In Pickering, a public school teacher wrote a letter to the editor of a local paper. The letter opposed a proposed tax increase and was highly critical of the school board's management of funds. The teacher, Pickering, was fired for writing the letter.
Lower courts ruled that Pickering's speech was unprotected by the First Amendment because his voluntary acceptance of the teaching position obliged him to refrain from making critical statements concerning the school' operation. The Supreme Court reversed the lower courts' rulings, finding in favor of the teacher. The Supreme Court viewed that his comments were indeed of legitimate great public concern and that this outweighed any disruption in normal operations his comments may have caused.
Courts place a heavier burden upon a government agency to justify a prior restraint on speech, such as a gag order. See also United States v National Treasury Employees Union 513 US 454 (1995) and Sanjour v EPS 56 F. 3d 85 (1995)
In this instance (The Intermountain Regional Directive) the Park Service seeks an overbroad prior restraint on all employee off-duty writings on any "topic which is generally related to their work" regardless of whether the writings are without compensation. Under this directive the Park Service would have the discretion to suppress off-duty disclosures on matters of great public import, of political speech or even of reports made by an employee in a private capacity to another government agency such as law enforcement, the Office of Special Counsel as well as the media.
As employees of a government agency, NPS staff members retain First Amendment rights. This directive unquestionably is a restraint upon those rights unsupported by any articulated rational basis and are written in a broad unconstrained manner. This directive would not withstand constitutional scrutiny.
2. IT IS ILLEGAL
Every year since the mid 1980's, Congress has reenacted a prohibition against the use of federal funds to institute or enforce a non-disclosure policy. This "anti-gag" provision is part of the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations Act of 2001.
Naturally, there are exceptions to protect national security . However the September 16th Intermountain Region memorandum contains none of the required exceptions and provisos regarding national security. Consequently, the directive and any steps to implement it are an illegal use of appropriated funds. The NPS will not only be violating the Constitution, but will be violating a Congressional statute passed last year, as it has been passed in the previous 13 years.
3. IT IS BAD POLICY
In NPS Director Fran Mainela's outreach to citizen groups following her confirmation, she had pledged to bring an atmosphere and policy of openness to the NPS.
Indeed, this appeared to be he case when PEER represented a ranger (Robert Jackson) from Yellowstone National Park who was given a gag order barring off-duty discussion of work-related issues. In settling that case, park officials rescinded the gag order and promised to post a free speech policy. PEER believes that Fran Mainela's involvement in this matter helped both parties reach a mutually beneficial resolution that also served the public interest.
However, PEER believes that the directive from the Intermountain Region represents a long step backwards and does not represent Director Mainela's policy for the NPS."
Naturally, your kindly editor is concerned about this matter as it would have eliminated both him and and THUNDERBEAR from gainful employment with the National Park Service, should he have failed to submit each and every issue and article to Star Chamber scrutiny.
We are grateful that PEER shared their concern with THUNDERBEAR. In addition to the three criticisms leveled by PEER, We would like to add a fourth:
4. IT IS A REALLY DUMB DIRECTIVE
Civil Rights groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union can go a whole year without having such a juicy cause dropped right in their lap by unthinking bureaucrats. Most civil rights issues have huge swatches of gray area; this one breaks neatly into heavy handed upper level management bullying of the working field rangers. One can visualize THE NEW YORK TIMES editorial writer ridiculing the pompous line about "....A notice of intention to publish non-official expression and certificate of compliance must be submitted through proper channels to the Regional Public Affairs Officer who will forward a recommendation to the Assistant Regional Director, Human Resources, for approval". (Indeed, the title "Assistant Regional Director of Human Resources" has a weirdly Orwellian 'Newspeak' ring in this context) The liberal media will have a happy hour at the expense of the NPS and not even the Republican party can (or will want to) save us.
ADDITIONAL BAD NEWS, PART II
Now neighbors, years ago, THUNDERBEAR announced the "Additional Bad News Concept". This is the idea that if a disaster or serious problem has been visited upon you, the best antidote is additional bad news in an entirely different sector. This will REALLY get the old adrenalin flowing and help you solve the original problem AND the new one. An example would be if you happened to have a 200,000 acre uncontrolled fire in your park, the best thing that could happen would NOT be the arrival of a fleet of air tankers, but rather an earthquake registering 9 on the Richter scale. Such an unexpected problem arriving at an inconvenient time, would unleash problem solving juices you didn't know you possessed.
A case in point is the spectacular rise in the cost of government health insurance (about a 10% increase, I believe) which a lot of people had not factored into their budget. Many people would consider this a problem.
Now is the time for Additional Bad News. How about in addition to a 10% increase in health insurance, that we consider abolishing your job?
Brilliant! I'll bet you never thought of that! Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) decided to investigate this remote but possible Additional Bad News in the following excerpt.
CONTRACTING OUT THE PARKSPublic Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is researching a Bush plan to contract out the national parks. While the Bush regime takes its wrecking ball to the national parks from Stiltsville in Biscanyne National Park to snowmobiles in Yellowstone, they are hatching a more corrupting plan under the guise of an old (1955/1966 circular from the Office of Management and Budget known as A-76, the Bush ideologues are engineering the corporate management of the national parks.
Initiated in September, 2001, the Norton Interior Department (DOI) identified 11,807 jobs in the National Park Service (NPS) that are not "governmental" in nature. It is these jobs that the NPS is expected to contract out to the lowest bidders over the next ten years. What are these non-governmental jobs? They are the maintenance folks, the biologists, the archaeologists, the environmental specialists, the interpreters, in short, anyone but the law enforcement rangers and the park managers. DOI classifies these 11,907 jobs as "commercial" in nature that should be considered for privatization.
Who will bid for these jobs? The NPS can bid to retain them, but the NPS will be competing against entities that need pay only the federal minimum wage and need not offer health or retirement benefits. Conceivably, Disney Corporation could bid to provide all interpretive services in Yosemite National Park, when and if those jobs come up on the auction block. (Perhaps then the apologists for Disney-size park entrance fees will be happy with their up-till-now inapt analogy)
Under marching orders from Interior, NPS Director Fran Mainella is seeking to take millions of dollars of park operating funds and dedicate them not to operating the parks but to studying the first 1800 jobs to be considered for bid. The NPS has already spent many dollars in operating funds for the salary, time and travel expenses of multiple oversight and steering committees to guide the contracting-out process. Now, Mainella wants 5.5 million dollars in Fiscal Year 2003 to study the jobs. That is enough money to operate Joshua Tree National Monument for an entire year with a couple of million to spare. And the NPS needs more money? but there is something even more disturbing. The NPS has contracted with the Denver based engineering/management firm, CH2M Hill, to study each position at a cost to the taxpayer and NPS operating funds of $1,500 per job analyzed. The NPS appears incapable of doing the job by itself. It must pay a contractor.
Moreover, the contractor is not neutral. CH2M Hill conducts a multi-million dollar business in operating and maintaining military and federal facilities. PEER intends to find out how CH2M Hill obtained this lucrative contract and whether CH2M Hill will be banned from submitting bids for the positions it studies and recommends to be contracted out. PEER seeks to know what relationship CH2M Hill may have with other organizations, as a contractor or as a donor.
The Bush plan for corporate park management has caused distress throughout the National Park Service. In some parks, large numbers of park employees have signed joint letters to their members of Congress to protest the foolishness of the ideologically driven privatization project.
In late July, Congressman Moran of Virginia succeeded in having the House pass an amendment to a Fiscal 2003 appropriations act to prohibit the use of arbitrary quotas for privatizing Federal jobs. Perhaps the Senate will follow suit.
PEER, in its growing role as defender of the National Park System Employees and their park protection responsibilities , will try to find out more about the Bush plan and keep the public informed.
Well now, neighbors! Can the present administration privatize the National Park work force if not the National Parks themselves? Interesting question!
The possibility of "contracting out" has been considered before, and has been done on a small scale in a number of parks. There are, of course, historical precedents. Since the first days of Yellowstone, the government has relied on private contractors to provide food, lodging, and transportation in the national parks.
Could not this precedent be extended to include other "commercial" or "non-professional" services such as maintenance, interpretation, and resource management, who could be contracted out? This would leave the "Professional" or protective core of the NPS safe from privatization for the moment.
Naturally, there are those who would balk at the idea of restricting the title of "park professional" to someone who packs a pistol.
Indeed, carrying a gun may not be sufficient to protect your job. Farming out NPS law enforcement is not an untouchable, third rail idea. No less a personage than the legendary NPS director George Hartzog, Jr proposed that park law enforcement be contracted out to the local Sheriff's department. Search and rescue can be done by local volunteer groups and wildfire can be handled by a contract with the US Forest Service. There would be no end to the number of jobs that could be eliminated by a motivated manager( his own job excepted, of course!)
But would it be possible to contract out interpretation, given the relatively low pay scale for such work?
Well yes! Thanks to the miracle of globalization, it will be possible to hire competent, English speaking graduate students from third world counties and bring them into the U.S. on short term group visas to do interpretive work in the parks. (I believe it is necessary that the contractor be a U.S. Citizen, but it is not necessary for the employees of his "John Muir Interpretive Services Inc" be American citizens.
So you see, Yes! It is possible to have your job abolished! That should make your day and get the old creative juices flowing!
I particularly liked the part about using NPS funds from various accounts to finds ways to abolish NPS job. Your editor has not seen such logical consistency since the time the Chinese Communist government announced that as a cost saving measure, they were going to charge the next of kin of an executed person the cost of the bullet used to shoot him!
Should you prefer not to participate in this Brave New World, you just might like to contact Congressman Moran's office and then your own congressperson to see just where they stand on this issue.
In the absence of a strong and effective labor union in the NPS and the presence of hostile management in at least one region of the Service, you might consider joining PEER if for no other reason than idle curiosity over what is going to happen next.
Membership in PEER is $30 a year, and they do not sell, trade, or disclose your name to any other organization. They are also tax deductible. PEER's address is PEER, 2002 S st. NW, Suite 570, Washington, DC 20009. Should you wish to chat up Jeff Ruch, the phone # is 202-265-7337. The FAX is 202-265-4192. The Email is info@peer.org and their very interesting website is www.peer.org
Happy trails!
THE DEATH OF SNAIL MAIL
One of the few sad by-products of the Cyber Era is the death of real mail.
Or more properly, the joy of checking the mailbox for the simple pleasure of experiencing the unexpected. Each day's "Ka THUNK! of the mail box lid or the turn of the key in the post office box was sort of a daily mini-Christmas. You wondered what the mail would bring, what interesting paper treasure the great trawl net of the post office would dump in your lap. There would be bills, of course, the third partner of the death & taxes trilogy. They could be overlooked for the moment, as could the magazines, COLLIERS, CORONET, LIFE, ARGOSY, LOOK, TRUE and dozens more now defunct titles.
What you were after was the first class mail. The letters that were addressed to you and to you alone. It was usually a regular sized envelope (that is, not "legal" size) The envelope had real postage stamps, and, if your correspondent was imaginative, they would be commemoratives. If you had a particularly interesting day, one or more of the letters would have exotic foreign stamps and come from those "far away places with the strange sounding names" as the song went.
The letter would almost always be in ink and in long hand. Sometimes the ink would be a bit smeared and your correspondent would apologize for the cause; a leaking tent on a botanical field expedition to the upper amazon or a dim yak butter lamp in a lamasery on the Tibetan plateau. Whatever the address, these letters exuded adventure and romance, right down to the final "Wish you were here!" So did you.
Speaking of romance, if one were a certain age and station in life, one looked for a pastel colored letter with a distinctive perfume and a distinctive handwriting (If you were female, you had to settle for a stolid white envelope from your male admirer--us guys did not go in for feminine fripperies)
Alas! All the romance of paper mail is gone! With e-mail any fool with access to a computer can send a letter--and fools do: the same letter sent over and over to hundreds of unfortunates.
In the past, the mental strain of putting together pen, paper, envelope, first class postage, and the occasional coherent thought was enough to block excessive mail.
Not so in today's electronic abundance. Ease of production has not led to felicity of thought. I have read few memorable electronic letters. Most of them read like the permitted monthly letter sent from a particularly disagreeable P.O.W. camp. They are terse, guarded, neutral in tone, and totally non-controversial.
They are in short, a series of electronic grunts. Why is this? The obvious reason is the total lack of security and privacy in e- mail correspondence, you are essentially howling your message down the main street of the Global Village when you send an e mail message. You don't need Mr. Miranda to tell you that your words can and will be used against you.
So have people returned to paper mail, penning letters that will survive as ornaments to the writer and their century, letters that will be collected in anthologies and be subjects for doctoral thesis? Well no, electronic mail is just too damn easy!
Does this mean that paper mail is dead?
Unfortunately, no.
Paper mail is alive and well in the form of fake first class mail. It is estimated that the post office moves 5 million tons of the stuff every year and your most obedient editor seems to get more than his share of the 5 million tons.
I admit that most of it is my fault. Over the years, I have joined many environmental groups, each of whom have the tribal memory of an Afghan warlord. They never forget a name. They never can believe I can forgo the latest environmental Jihad.
Also, since I believe that the First and Second amendments to the Constitution are desperately important and mutually supporting, I have joined both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association.
Apparently both these organizations sell their membership lists as I get mail from every nut group on both the left and right of the political spectrum. Letters announcing that Hilary Clinton is the Antichrist joist in my mailbox with other letters telling me that Bush The Younger hates Bambi.
In addition, for a price, the Church of Scientology wants to save me from myself ("Did your problems start before you were born?" and who am I to question Tom Cruise or John Travolta devout converts to the True Faith.)
A letter from the Second Amendment Foundation ominously warns my mailman that the letter is not to be opened by "Anyone other than P. Ryan", lest liberals hear of our plans to preserve our gun rights.
Marc Racicot, Chairman of the Republican Central Committee is downright petulant and peevish in his letter "Your membership in the Republican National Committee is about to expire and it could not come at a worse time. When Jim Jeffords decided to leave the Republican Party, he gave control of the Senate to the liberal Democrats and gave them new hope for regaining control of the U.S. House." (Honest, Marc! that wasn't entirely my fault and besides, I was out of town when that happened!)
Marc continues his chiding: "Although you have not been a financial supporter of the RNC for some time now, it is critically important for you to renew your membership in the RNC with a contribution of $40 or $25 today" (Good news, Marc! I had earmarked far more than $40 for the RNC to defeat those damn liberals. The bad news is that somebody suddenly raised my government health insurance premiums by 10% tragically wiping out the pot of money I had planned to donate to the RNC! Sorry about that!)
Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, doesn't entirely trust the printers as he (apparently) laboriously writes out the addresses of his begging letters by hand, and impulsively slaps a handwritten post-it on the letter itself, reminding me to save the Tongass National Forest. I like that personal touch, Carl!
The American Civil Liberties Union needs me to re-up right away even though my membership has not expired as they have found a whole new dust ball of fascists under the bed and need money right away.
The American Sentinel magazine is not only willing to help me root out liberals, but tell me how to obtain and store food and weapons for the coming Armageddon. Senator Jesse Helms is an avid reader of the Sentinel, stating "I have long been convince that the average American would be appalled if he were to suddenly discover what is being done to this country by left-wing forces. That is why your publication is so valuable to the public" (I'll have to introduce the Senator to THUNDERBEAR)
Yup, neighbors. The average daily catch of junk mail sort of resembles those old national park summer staff annual picnics, with the permanent staff members who were usually old and conservative and the seasonal who were usually young and liberal, with both groups a bit tipsy on beer and pointing out each others faults and stating loudly which direction the park and the nation should be heading.
Nobody paid much attention, but as I recall, it was more fun than junk mail.
MORE INPUT FROM PEER
September has obviously been a banner harvest month for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) The Administration and its friends provide an almost limitless crop of things to be outraged about.
The following PEER article send to me by that organization for THUNDERBEAR comment, deals with the poignant subject of what one should do when one leaves the National Park Service.
Most of us take away fond memories, many take photographs, but two former employees would like to take away a chunk of the national parks as a more tangible souvenir. Confused? Dumbstartled? So was your kindly editor, so read on:
FREE TRADE--PARK SERVICE STYLEOn September 2, 2002, the National Park Service closed comment on its draft general management plan for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan. This plan examined several alternatives to adjust the boundaries of the Lakeshore. Buried among the alternatives is one of the most egregious swindles of national park system lands to come along in while.
A private party, Homestead Resorts, owned by a company named Bayberry Properties, possesses 106 acres of hard to develop wetlands on the Crystal River. The lands lie outside of the Lakeshore boundaries. Homestead Resorts proposed that it trade its wetlands to the National Park Service (NPS) and in exchange obtain 168 acres of upland owned the people of the United States within the Lakeshore. The 168 acres consists of both wooded and meadow land and it has spectacular views of Lake Michigan. If they can obtain the lands, Homestead intends to develop the 168 acres in trophy homes surrounded by Federal Park lands.
This kind of a "trade" is impossible under the present laws that govern land exchange in the national park system. First, the National Park Service cannot trade away federal park lands to gain title to lands that are outside of a park. Second, even if both tracts of 106 and 168 acres were within the lakeshore, the NPS could legally trade away the federal park lands to gain the nonfederal tract ONLY if the NPS judged these lands to be "suitable".
The NPS condemned and acquired the lands (the 168 acre tract) without the consent of the former owners to prevent their being developed precisely because the lands were critical for park protection.
Because the present laws do not allow so gross a betrayal of the public trust and the statuary duties of the NPS, there are moves being made to obtain special legislation to allow this "trade"
The land developer is lobbying hard and has hired the paid services of former NPS Director James Ridenour who served during the term of George Bush I. Reportedly also on the payroll, is former Chief of NPS Land Resources Division, Will Kriz.
When Ridenour was Director of the NPS, he never really grasped the significance of the National Parks. his current conduct should therefore come s no surprise.
There have been land exchanges before in which the NPS traded away Federal Park Land to gain title to nonfederal land in a park .But they are few and far between. In the history of the National Park system there may not be any example of trading away to a developer lands that the NPS condemned and acquired without the owners consent. This sweetheart deal may conceal more than meets the eye, though from what is visible now, it is an outrageous example of corporate welfare and possible special interest politics."
Now neighbors, allow me to leap to the defense of my fellow Republicans, Ridenour and Kriz. First of all, they haven't done anything wrong. As Americans they have every right to encourage and promote special legislation that would benefit themselves and their friends. Carping criticism of this nature lies in the realm of "Now why the hell didn't I think of that!" Had I the foresight to buy up certain private inholdings in Joshua Tree National Monument, I could be terrorizing the NPS and the American taxpayer to this very day!
DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
Yes, and so does that tiresome French phrase: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.I happened to glance at an old issue of THUNDERBEAR, # 23, December 23, 1982, and was reassured that nothing changes, just a few names and places. The greed remains the same. Let's take a look back in time, or is it the present and future?
THE TROUBLE WITH WATTERIUM
Associated Press, December 28, 1982, New York.
For the third straight day, stocks on the New York Exchange sky rocketed following the announcement by the U.S. Geological Survey of huge discoveries of the miracle mineral Wattirium under most of the public lands of the Western United States.
Wattirium, a sulphide of chutzpa, has the unusual properties of dissolving the energy crisis, the Russian menace and the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
"We have been looking for this mineral for a long time" a spokesperson for the Department of Interior was quotes as saying yesterday.
Despite jubilation in some quarters, environmental groups and other defectives have raised some objections; chief of which is the need to strip mine most of the Rocky Mountains, leaving them somewhat stubby, like a Marine Corps recruit haircut. A second objection lies in the need to reverse the flow of the Yukon River so that it will flow through the Wattirium fields of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
Interior Department spokespersons stated that the present river, the Colorado, "is basically an unimaginative, shiftless, time serving, civil servant type of a river, too small and too old for the job. What America needs is a young dynamic river like the Yukon to handle Wattirium processing.
Conservation groups objected to the storage of the Yukon river water behind the mile high James G.Watt dam in what was once Grand Canyon, and disagreed with the Interior Department's plan to power the electric pumps necessary to reverse the flow of the Yukon by harnessing the as yet untapped geothermal power of Yellowstone National Park.
The Premier of Canada, an unimaginative wimp, objected that the rerouted Yukon would flow through Canada and he had not been consulted. It was pointed out by the U.S. Secretary of Defense that the U.S. had tried to take Canada twice and maybe three was the charm. The Canadian withdrew his objection.
Another objection is the problem of Wattirium sludge, the somewhat yucky bile yellow residue of wattirium processing.
It is believe that Wattirium sludge would coat the Rocky Mountain West with a mildly carcinogenic layer no more than one inch deep and extend out into the Gulf of Mexico not more that 200 miles.
Industry spokespersons admit that they do not as yet have a solution for the sludge problem, though they point out that the sticky, flypaper-like consistency of the sludge will slow illegal immigration into the U.S.) The spokesperson stated that "We can depend on good ol'American know-how to eventually solve the problem" Until that time, industry spokespersons are moving their families to Switzerland.
Associated Press, December 28 Washington
There has been considerable speculation in Washington concerning an unprecedented speech by an eight foot flying bear in Congress today.
By all accounts, the Bear presented a defense of the environment and an analysis of economics remarkable for a bear.
The huge beast pointed out that self-sufficiency in minerals, while nice, was not necessary to the happiness and well-being of a country.
The Bear cited the cases of New Zealand, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, none of which has any discernable mineral resources and which all have higher standards of living than the U.S
The Bear went on to cite the case of the Soviet Union which is self sufficient in all minerals and an exporter of oil and gas. The government of the Soviet Union finds that rather than administering Shangri La, they are faced with the task of placating an angry, cynical, turbulent population, increasingly given to stealing from the state to make ends meet and increasingly given to alcohol to escape from reality.
The Bear is said to have concluded his speech with a rousing statement that "...A nation's wealth cannot be measured in mineral production, but rather in the health, education, and morale of its people and its production of renewable food and fiber!"
Unfortunately, Congress was not in session December 28 and the speech was heard only by the House janitor, Amos Jenkins, who was sweeping up when the Bear appeared . According to Jenkins, the Bear gave him a copy of the speech and asked that it be passed on to the WASHINGTON STAR for immediate publication. The Bear apparently did not know that the WASHINGTON STAR had been out of business for years and Jenkins cold not convince him otherwise.
Jenkins' supervisor stated that Jenkins was "An exemplary government employee" and had no apparent problem with alcohol and had a brilliant career as a janitor ahead of him prior to the Flying Bear incident. GSA is still investigating.
MASSACRE
A few years ago, when the American Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC was dedicated, the Germans were rather pointedly not invited to the ceremony. The omission was understandable and even perhaps face saving. After all, how does one apologize for the death of six million people.
However, the Germans were upset by the implied rebuke.
A German spokesperson said " We Germans have only one corpse in the cellar (the Jews) while you Americans have three: The American Indian, Slavery, and Viet Nam"
The German has a point. While the Viet Nam issue can be debated, the evil treatment of the Native American and the African American certainly cannot.
This raises the interesting historical question of exactly how many Native Americans did we Apprentice Americans murder since 1776?
I realize this is an awkward question. One that we would prefer not to address. After all, we are the good guys and good guys don't do such things.
If you take the word of revisionist writers and historians such as Howard Zinn, Kirkpatrick Sale or Alexander Cockburn, you will find that we Neo-Americans killed hundreds of thousands of our Red Brothers. This is true if you count the native Americans done in by our three great allies, disease, alcohol and despair.
Yes, but you are begging the question: How many Native Americans did we directly murder? How many atrocities or war crimes did we commit?
Amateur murder is a bit hard to quantify. Probably most of casualties and atrocities on both sides were spontaneous, small party or even single party affairs, tit for tat. Little Mary Fairchild would go to the well for a bucket of water--and not come back. Young Brave Bear would walk into the woods to hunt deer--and not come back. Over the decades and centuries these casualty figures began to add up--and so did the stories, legends and prejudices.
Theodore Roosevelt, who got in on the last, flickering days of "The Winning of the West", desperately wanted to be a"frontiersman", that is, he desperately wanted to get into an "Indian Fight" before the Red man became extinct. One day while out riding in the Dakota badlands, he saw several Indians on the horizon and imagined himself in mortal danger. Perhaps he was. He "gestured" at them with his rifle and they went away. That was all. Other Indians at other times were not so fortunate and became extinct in these tiny Clashes of Cultures.
Since we cannot commemorate all the spots in America where the Mary Fairchilds and Young Brave Bears disappeared (and Harvard graduates became nervous), we generally focus on the more formal affairs, the "battles" in which the "Winning of the West" (Now displaced by the more politically correct "Clash of Cultures") occurred.
The "battles" were usually not the Native Americans' choice. They normally took place in the wrong terrain, in the wrong time of year against a foe who was usually technologically, tactically, and often numerically superior.
Since we were the foe, that's the way we wanted it and that's what we usually got since we were Master of Ceremonies at these affairs. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was an unfortunate accident.
Most of the time, from the "battle" of Horseshoe Bend near the beginning of the 19th century to the "Battle" of Wounded Knee near the end of that century, the "battles" were pretty one-sided engagements.
By and by, the National Park Service, as the arbiter of American history, was asked to come up with certain changes in the moral compass of how we tell our history.
Although, the 19th Century and early 20th century Americans were obsessed with Indian "massacres" and "outrages", it became increasingly obvious to the fair minded person, that it was generally the Indian rather than the Whites who were "massacred" and "outraged."
In fairness to the American Government and us Neo-Americans, they represent, your editor has been able to find only three cases of a genocidal order being given to or from a general officer of the U.S. Army.
Of these three orders, only one involved Native Americans, and that order was countermanded by the field commander. (Brigadier General Carson refused to carry out a written order to exterminate the Navajos).
The massacre of Native Americans by government troops was usually the result of spontaneous actions by frightened and incompetent officers and soldiers, rather than some evil, genocidal plan on the part of the government or Army high command. The Native American massacres were, in short, not unlike the My Lai Massacre of the Viet Nam War. Having said this, it must be remarked that the unwilling participants were just as dead as if there had been a plan.
The National Park Service has investigated the five most infamous Native American massacre sites in the event that Congress and the American people desire to officially note our moral failure by establishing a National Historic Site at the location of the massacres.
The five sites investigated by the NPS are listed in order of magnitude. Due to the nature of such events, the Native American casualty figures includes the elderly, the sick, women and children as well as able-bodied combatants.
It should also be noted that the NPS casualty figures are the lowest estimates, so folks naturally suspicions of the government may feel free to double them. They are as follows. 1. Bear River, Idaho, January 28, 1863, 240 Northwest Shoshone killed.
2. Marias River, Montana, January 20, 1870, 170 Blackfeet killed.
3. Wounded Knee, South Dakota, December 29, 1890, 146 Lakota killed.
4. Sand Creek, Colorado, November 19, 1864, 130 Cheyenne killed
5. Washita River, Oklahoma, November 27, 1868, 103 Cheyenne, killed
The last three massacres, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, and The Washita are fairly well known to the general public due to books, film and other media. Sand Creek was the basis of the film "Cheyenne Autumn" and Wounded Knee has been the focus of many books and articles for many decades. The Washita has been commemorated by the establishment of Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in 1996. (The Washita does approach a "battle" as the surprised Cheyenne were able to mount a counterattack and did inflict significant casualties on Colonel Custer's forces, as well as preserve themselves from complete disaster.)
The First two massacres are less well known. The Marias River Massacre has a surreal quality to it: A column of US army troops marches through a blinding January Blizzard to attack a band of hostile Blackfeet camped on the Marias. The troop commander is drunk. He disregards scout reports and attacks a peaceful village that is short of food and undergoing a smallpox epidemic and is in no condition to resist. (The hostile village hears the gunfire and makes a successful escape.)
The Bear River Massacre is the largest and perhaps the least known of our atrocities in the "Clash of Cultures".
As is usual in such disasters, there were precursor events, the usual "tit for tat" of action and reprisal. Emigrants on the Oregon trail were often harassed by Indians who wanted some of the shiny metal objects that the emigrants apparently had in such abundance and the Shoshones were not adverse to taking livestock. The Whites had been raised on tales of the "diabolical" cruelty of the "savages" and were quick on the trigger.
One legend that never failed to fascinate and horrify the Whites from the time of Daniel Boone to the present was the White Child Captive who would be turned into (gasp!) an Indian.
A man by the name of Zachias Van Orman became convinced that a blond, blue eyed child living with Chief Bear Hunter's Shonshone band was his nephew, captured in an 1860 raid. Chief Bear Hunter swore that the boy was the son of a French trapper and another Chief's wife. Van Orman asked Colonel Patrick Connor of the California Volunteers, a federalized unit protecting communications with the West Coast, to intervene.
A conference was held, ultimatums issues, threats shouted, and shots were fired. Four Shoshone men lay dead. "Tit" followed "Tat" in short order. Ten miners on their way to the Montana gold fields were ambushed and killed on January 5, as was another miner on January 6, apparently in retaliation.
Colonel Connor decided to strike Chief Hunting Bear's band in winter camp on the Bear River.
On January 29, at 6 AM of a bitter cold morning, Colonel Connor's 270 cavalry and infantry forded the Bear River to attack the encampment. At first, things did not go well for the Army. The river was much deeper than expected, there was confusion, and many of the infantry had to cling to the stirrups and saddle horns of the cavalry. The Shoshones were able to pour effective fire into them from the willows along the river bank, killing 21 of the troopers.
However, once the river was forded and the willow grove secured by the Army the battle was essentially over. It was at this point that Connor either lost control of his troops or did not try to control them, and they began to kill everyone in the village, including women, children, and the elderly.
Estimates of those killed run as high as 500 killed to the low of 240 reported by Colonel Connor who admitted that he did not count all the corpses. About 160 women and children were captured and later released. Shoshone accounts suggests that about 20 men escaped.
According to Mae Parry, Tribal Secretary of the Northwestern Band Shoshone Tribal Council, Chief Hunting Bear met a particularly grim fate. "The soldiers whipped, kicked, and tried every other means of torture. Bear Hunter said not a word, nor did he cry out. To him it would have been a sign of cowardice. As a final act the soldiers heated a bayonet in Bear Hunter's camp fire anan it through his head ear to ear. His wife witnessed this from the thick willows where she was hiding. This widow later married my great grandfather, Chief Sagwitch."
Why were the soldiers so ruthless?
Aside from the 20 comrades killed, it was possible vengeance for a massacre that didn't happen. There was a persistent rumor of a large wagon train on the Oregon Trail in Idaho in the 1850's that was overwhelmed by Shoshones and the entire complement of over 500 men, women, and children were slaughtered.
It didn't happen, but it was such a persistent tale that one of those unhistorical highway plaques was raised to "commemorate" the non-event.
There was even a movement in Idaho to establish a historic site for the non-event.
This attracted the notice of one of the Park Service's premier military historians Ed Bearss (pronounced "Bars" by those who have had the pleasure of meeting him.)
Bearss was immediately skeptical of the White wagon train massacre. First of all, it was militarily unlikely.
Hollywood to the contrary, American Indians could not normally overcome a wagon train, particularly a large train. A wagon train was a rolling fortress that could be quickly "laagered" for defence. The chance fora successful attack on a wagon train was slim to none. The sole exception seems to have been the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Southwest Utah, and that was with Mormon supervision and participation.
Secondly, 500 people was a lot of people in pre civil war America. There would have been some notice taken of the sudden disappearance of 500 friends and relatives who were not sending letters home from Oregon. Bearss found no such concern in the journals or newspapers of the time.
Thirdly, there was no mention of such an epochal event in Shoshone tribal lore and legend. As oral history was very important to Native Americans, the failure to mention the killing of a huge number of emigrants would be very strange indeed. Finally, there was no archeological evidence. Where were all those wagons, tools, farm implements, jewelry, watches and other personal items that at least some of the Shoshones would have acquired?
Sorry, Idaho. No fake Indian "outrage" as a tourist site.
Ah, but Western chambers of commerce are not to be deterred! The National Park Service arrowhead on a sign in a rural Western county is the next best thing to a golden egg laying goose! How about a National Historic Site commemorating The "Battle" of Bear River?
Sorry again, Idaho. Ed Bearrs, Warren Brown, Bruce Powell, and just about everyone else in the NPS who examined the evidence, agrees with the Shoshone Tribal Council that the incident was not a "battle" but a "genocidal massacre" and should be commemorated as such. So we just might get an Indian massacre site and a discussion therein.
And what of Colonel Connor? What became of him? Connor was promoted to Brigadier General. He would be the immediate supervisor of Colonel John Chevington, commanding at Sand Creek, Colorado on November 19, 1864
DOWN MEMRI LANE
This is the hand-wringing rhetorical question asked by liberal media types (are there any other kind?) regarding the Arabs.
Since hate leads to war, and war is hard on the environment, we as environmentalists should consider this question.
As remarked, this is a rhetorical question with its own set of answers; answers that may be correct, if you believe that we Americans have done something basically wrong.
What, for instance? Well, freedom, democracy, prosperity, and all those women running around completely unmanaged and uncontrolled! In addition to freedom of the press, and freedom to choose our leaders, there is not only freedom of religion, but freedom FROM religion; something that even the most "moderate of Moslems cannot abide or tolerate if it is in their power to do something about it. These are just a few of our shortcomings in the eyes of our Arab brothers.
"But is it necessary that they hate us?" (Americans have this thing about being popular. The idea of being unpopular never bothered the British or the Russians during their empires and the Chinese never took a popularity poll among the Tibetans. Ah, but we Americans want to be loved!)
Well yes, it is necessary that they hate us. Hate can be a very practical thing if it diverts attention away from one's own shortcomings (As in an Arab government) and moves it in the direction of the U.S. (Satan's Big Brother)
Hatred is a pretty reliable perennial crop, but it needs to be fertilized on a daily basis,and this is where the Arab media comes in.
Arab magazines and newspapers have a frontier quality about them, with the editorial woven right into the news story so you can quickly and efficiently reach the proper conclusion. They are also hilariously funny in their prejudices and bias and make a great read.
A great read? Well yes, neighbors. You see, Arabic is what the U.S. State Department Foreign Service classifies as a category four language. Category four is the hardest group of languages for a native English speaker to learn. Some category four languages are: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and of course, Arabic.
This means that until recently, the average American non-CIA type had no access to what, exactly, that our Arab brothers were saying about us. That is, an Arab news commentator could expound in English to, say, Dan Rather, and give Dan all the sweetness and brotherhood that Dan likes to hear, while saying something decidedly different in the Arab media.
An outfit called MEMRI (Middle Eastern Research Institute) has solved our lack of communication and understanding with our Arab friends. The motto of MEMRI is "Bridging the language gap between East and West"
What MEMRI does is carefully translates Arab language magazines and newspapers into English, without comment, and make them available to you free of charge.
Now I'm sure you'll agree that that is very kind of MEMRI to perform such a thoughtful service. Is there any catch? Well, I suspect that MEMRI is an arm of Israeli Intelligence. As the lads at Mossad didn't just fall the matzo wagon yesterday, they hit upon the idea of letting the other guy hang himself with his own rope. That is, they publish Arab opinion without any commentary or editorializing of their own. It's a very effective form of propaganda!
So now you can take a trip down MEMRI lane and find out all about the level of George Bush's IQ. (low, according to the President of the Arab Association of Psychiatrists) and American involvement with Satan (high according to just about everyone else.) You will also find out "Why do they hate us so?"
Because they are told to do so.
MEMRI can be accessed at http://www.MEMRI.org.
PAGE & CARLSBAD
What do Page, Arizona and Carlsbad, New Mexico have in common? Since they are both in the Southwest, obviously lots of sun. not too many trees, probably a lot of golf, probably quite a few retirement sub-divisions, service clubs, stuff like that. Anything else?
What they both have is former NPS superintendents on the City Council.
John Cook, former superintendent of just about everything is on the City Council of Page, Arizona and Larry Henderson, late of Guadelupe National Park is on the City Council of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
How did they get there? Well, I reckon it was failure to keep a low profile.
Superintendents, as you may recall, are always trying to improve things, make things better; make every day better than the last. Nothing irritates people more! People hate being improved.
Finally, after decades of improving things, superintendents and regional directors are finally put out to pasture, with the kindly injunction that improvement is no longer necessary; they can go do something else, relax, keep a low profile, somethings just don't need doing; have a good time; don't get involved.
However, years of being misquoted by THE NEW YORK TIMES, attacked by politicians, harassed by environmental groups and savaged by the local business establishments, have given some superintendents a taste for controversy and a will for battle that is somewhat addictive.
Most superintendents are cured of this addiction by retirement and are able to keep a low profile.
I believe it is backyard barbecues that causes superintendents to relapse into politics.
The barbecue is a standard feature of small town life. Bucolic but dangerous. People tend to drop their guard after the third beer or glass of wine.
This unguarded moment may cause the former superintendent to chuckle avuncularly and say to no one in particular:
"YOU KNOW, THIS COULD BE A PRETTY GOOD TOWN!'
The effect is instantaneous. Burgers stop in mid-flip, beer in mid-pour. There is silence. All eyes are on the former superintendent.
The audience immediately forms itself into a Greek Chorus.
"HE DIDN'T SAY "IS A PRETTY GOOD TOWN! HE DIDN'T SAY "IS"! HE SAID "COULD BE A PRETTY GOOD TOWN!" HE SAID "COULD!" They chant.
The Greek Chorus forms a circle around the former superintendent,points an accusatory fingers and sing " YOU MUST RUN FOR CITY COUNCIL! YOU MUST CHANGE "COULD" TO "IS".
The former superintendent is flattered. Philosophically, he is aware that his "IS" probably is someone else's worst nightmare. Therefore, he/she will make enemies. But what the hell, it will be like old times!
So that's why I suspect that Cook and Henderson were lured back into the fray.
Page could use some work. The environmental philosopher Edward Abbey had some unkind things to say about Page. I rather suspect it is because he was not allowed to play first chair flute in the Page Symphony Orchestra, but I cannot document this.
John Cook has moved Page politics forward with characteristic vigor. He was able to get a one percent sales tax on liquor passed to support the town library, something that would have pleased Cactus Ed, who really did like to read more than he liked to drink.
I will have to ask Larry Henderson exactly what challenges confront him as councilman for Carlsbad, New Mexico. He is also the town undertaker, which I believe is a "first" for an NPS retiree. (No, I am unable to see a connection)
I am sort of interested in how many NPS retirees took to politics in their later years, either local, county, state, or national. If anybody has done a study or has a list, I would like to have a look at it and share with the readership.