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Show THE ZEPHYR/ APRIL-MAY 2008 The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found. SILVER BULLETS ‘We condition the masses to hate the country,’ concluded the Director. “But simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport. Hence those electric shocks.’ ‘I see, ‘said the student, and was silent, lost in admiration. - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World 1932 LURING THE KIDS The issue of Luring Kids to Nature will likely be the biggest thing to impact the management of Outdoor Recreation anyone has seen in a very long time. I fear that far too few people have yet to understand the threat and that none are mobilized against it. The wreckreation/tourism industry CONTROLS the Luring Kids to Nature issue. The MTC wreckreation/tourism industry also CONTROLS the thinking of the their “partners” -the land management agencies. The wreckreation/tourism industry has lined up the support of a few big-mame conservation groups (such as the National Wildlife Federation) to help them push their agenda. AND... the wreckreation/tourism industry is simultaneously pushing the related message saying that people have stopped going to the National Parks and other public lands because raw nature is no fun. The combination of these two messages has explosive potential. Appended are the first few slides of a PowerPoint presentation that will, I hope, help you to better understand the agenda and the threat. In an effort to Lure Kids to Nature, nature itself and the very nature of outdoor recreation MUST be reconfigured. It MUST Lim ag WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BICYCLES FOR WILDERNESS? The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) has, in recent years, repositioned itself both ideologically and politically. Formerly a non-motorized recreation group with wheels, today IMBA is, practically speaking, a motorized wreckreation group without motors. IMBA has taken a radical turn and as part of this transition, it is aligning itself ever more closely with the American Recreation Coalition and other anti-environ- be commercialized, privatized, and whenever possible, motorized.. From the American Recreation Coalition: Reaching American Kids in the 21st Century: New Strategies Needed mental motorized access interest groups. I’d just add that IMBA is not the only non-motorized group in this position. This transformation of recreation groups into wreckreation groups, and indeed the transformation of recreation into wreckreation, is a disconcerting trend. TAX THE SEDENTARY? Two Key Steps to Success Provide a compelling product/service Communicate via today’s medium to the right audience * We are told that kids are becoming obese while spending far too many hours immobilized before TV’s and play-stations. We are told, and it is true, that it would be highly beneficial if kids spent more time enjoying the natural environment and participating in unstructured outdoor play. Now a bill has been introduced to stop this trend by taxing the offenders. Here is an excerpt: If We Are Goimg to Try to Lure Today’s Kids to the Outdoors and Then Limit Them to Yesterday’’s Activities Then save your time and resources. They aren’t going to come. A Democratic lawmaker in New Mexico wants to tax televisions and video games to raise funds to fight childhood obesity and improve education in the state, officials said Friday. “I have asked our legislative council service to prepare the “Leave No Child Inside” bill and am hopeful that it will be ready for me to introduce on Monday,” educatorturned-lawmaker Gail Chasey told AFP. “Leave No Child Inside” -- a play on the federal - education initiative “No Child Left Behind” -- is backed by grassroots environmental group, the Sierra Club Get Their Aittention...Give Them What They Want! Excitement | competition...Adrenalin activities/challenges... Life Style expemience...Music...Social interaction ... Memories Learn About How to Manage New Activities Mountain biking... Terrain parks...Boarding...Geocaching... Podcasted interpretation...Destination wilderness sites I fully support those goals and yetI find myself questioning the mechanisms being brought to bear upon this situation. Forget for the moment that the now-famous Richard Louv (Brand) “Nature Deficiency Disorder” is largely the over-hyped PR-creation of the Once You Have the Product ...... Understand how your target audiences mak leisure time choices. Look at the communications trends of 2007 recreation industry. Forget that the industry’s purpose for promulgating this campaign (starting more than a decade before Louv was elevated to celebrity status) has always been to get more kids, teens, adults, retires and recreation consumers into the woods on off-road vehicles while pumping money into the tourism economy. Forget that vital piece of information and merely ask yourself whether it is appropriate to impose regressive and/or sin taxes that disproportionately impact persons of limited financial means? In this instance, is it right to penalize a poor minority family or the single mother whose kids are getting fat while glued in front of the TV? Will taxing their TV or video game resolve the social and economic issues that created this situation? Will taking money from that family’s budget solve their children’s weight problems, improve the quality of their diet or allow poor children to have recreational opportunities even vaguely similar to those of wealthy families -- families easily capable of purchasing the biggest televisions on the market while spending but a fraction of the tax cuts heaped www.wildwilderness.org DAVE'S upon them in recent years -- families who can afford personal trainers, memberships at the gym and even the new “America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Annual Pass” created by and for the identical recreation industry groups currently hyping the “More Kids in the Woods” mantra. Poorer people and working people did not receive similar windfalls. Poorer families can not afford the higher fees charged to access outdoor recreation areas, engage in school sports, or to swim and play at the local municipal park. Higher fees which exclude the poor are oftentimes, by design, meant to exclude the poor. EXCLUSION is 400 EAST & MILL CREEK DR... 299.6999 EVERYBODY COMES TODAVE' § their purpose. I don’t know what it is with the conservation community that they have become increasingly quick to rally behind regressive taxes and user fees. Socking it to the poor with TV-taxes is but the tip of an enormous iceberg of society-altering proposals based upon pricing and economic coercion. Pricing the poor out of the market has become a preferred tool of neoliberals and the liberals alike! Conservationists, in particular, have me Xe) 4a become extremely supportive of using targeted taxes and user fees to address a wide range of environmental problems. In this regard, they have embraced a New Environ- Tam mentalism far removed from, and oftentimes counter to, the ideals of environmental and social justice. PO Box 2716 A FEW LINES FROM ‘BRAVE NEW WORLD.’...HUXLEY GOT IT RIGHT Patiently the D.H.C. [Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning] explained. If the children were made to scream at the sight of a rose, that was on grounds of high economic policy. Not so very long ago (a century or thereabouts), Gammas, Deltas, even. Epsilons, had been conditioned to like flowers -—- flowers in particular and nature in general. ecocoee Vase secre lel a ha CNM Lieg Window Rock, AZ 86515 928.337.2898 email: ambrwHS1@yahoo.com Visit the Navajo Nation, enjoy the scenery & take home a pet with you The idea was to make them want BLACKHAT HUMANE SOCIETY fakes in dogs, cats (even sheep & horses) and fosters them in loving homes until they are ready to be adopted. All animals are in good health, current on vaccinations and are spayed/neutered....100% of donations go to the animals---spay/neuter surgery, vaccinations, food... to be going out into the country at every available opportunity, and so compel them to consume transportation. “And didn’t they consume transport?’ asked the student. ‘Quite a lot,” the D.H.C. replied. ‘But nothing else.’ Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. Is was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate amongst the lower classes to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even thought they hated it. ‘Check out our website: www.rezdog.petfinder.org 28 |