[at-l] A Question Of Trail

[RoksnRoots@aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

texas12step@hotmail.com writes:


> 12 Step) Property rights are not incompatible with protecting the
> trail from development so long as you're willing to bear
> the true cost of preserving wilderness.


    ~~~  I don't understand this. Are you saying we need to pay adequately 
for these lands? Or are you suggesting that preserving a narrow corridor in a 
remote range that wasn't ever prone to development, but is now a good 
political proving ground for extortionate land ransoming, is somehow a threat 
and needs to be resolved on the terms of a system that when given free reign 
will inevitably result in destruction of virgin wilds? Again, the AT is meant 
to spark thought over of the true cost of *not* preserving wilderness...


> 
> 
> There is also a weird anti-environmental trend
> > happening that is the sad result of the public being convinced
> > that it's a choice between $ and environment.
> 
> 12 Step)   Aren't you guilty of promoting this belief with talk of 
> "greasy bucks" and suchlike?


     ~~~  A buck becomes greasier and greasier when high powered, politically 
connected lawyers make back room deals paid for by the developer while the 
nation's showcase wilderness corridor gets short shrift for political 
expediency by modern-day politicians who have lost their sense of 
responsibility for the Trail and sold out for short-term popularity. These 
people have aggressively attacked the AT and what it stands for. If you want 
to see guilt, go look at the local towns peoples' words in the NPS review; 
look at the developer's manipulation of public opinion and false speculations 
over ski-area development he never intended; look at the meager, mild 
reaction by ATC to a serious incursion in a prime AT location. You can't 
possibly be seriously posing that this is our fault and we deserved being 
hornswoggled by what is probably a predesigned and approved regional plan to 
employ locals in home construction at the Trail's expense? You tell me then, 
what would it have taken to preserve the AT on Saddleback? 
     Remember here 12 Step, a multi-million dollar taxpayer payout was made 
here to a man who is now changing his proposal in midstream and plans to 
max-out under Saddleback. What were you saying about *us* again?  



> 
> >                                               Pure politics
> > and a sad circumstance of Americans coming to the choice
> > between progressive change and the same old way and choosing
> > the latter.
> 
> >     Mr Breen appealed to greed and won.
> 
> 12 Step)  This is true. It is also equally true that trail advocates
> appealed to greed and *lost.* They acted in the hope that
> if enough of them petitioned the government, they'd get the 
> mountain and a chunk of the surrounding viewshed without 
> having to pay for it. If the Trailplace campaign was any
> indication, most petitioners couldn't even restrain their
> *greed* to limiting the use of eminent domain to condemning 
> only the minimum amount of land "mandated" by "law."


     ~~~   Without having to pay for it? What was given to Breen? There's 
strong evidence that Breen had no means to build out that entire mountain. Do 
you understand what that means? I'll tell you. That means a scam was 
perpetuated in order to manipulate public feelings towards the AT in order to 
fetch a higher price for his deal. We are not talking about a person who 
understands the AT's mission and humbly respects it, we are possibly talking 
about aggressive Trail destruction for profit with a big threat being posed 
in order to raise the ransom. I am a person who does not describe the 
precious and unique quest to preserve an east coast wilderness corridor as 
"greed". That is an obscene interpretation. The Trail was designed to be a 
place where man and his ways were prevented from doing what is being done 
here to a protected zone. Why? Just look what happened here!!!
     Your last sentence reveals how little you understand about the AT. The 
AT is more than just a thin corridor. The many people reached by 'Walk In The 
Woods' begins to hint at it. What do I mean by that? I mean that the AT was 
supposed to be held dear in the consciousness of Americans. Your wording 
doesn't come close to touching on that. I can tell you one thing the AT isn't 
supposed to be,  -that is, grinding ski machinery built up to the brink of a 
former AT sweet spot in Maine and one of its highlights...



> 
> 
> 12 Step)   Don't try to dignify the acquisition of Saddleback by
> calling it a trade. Trade is not coerced.


     ~~~  And nature preservation as a concept is not dealt with or seen in 
these primitive terms. You seem to deal from a legal concept central 
viewpoint. If you want to see a fine example of the culmination of such 
thinking go to urban New York and New Jersey. There is a place where the 
status quo used the methods you espouse to determine what was right by their 
sense of rights and propitiousness. There ain't much left in way of nature 
down there, if you haven't noticed. These things don't happen in a vacuum. 
Again, are you leaving the future of the AT up to a man who submits a false 
speculation and doesn't give a rat's ass about the AT? What is your 
suggestion for preserving the AT on Saddleback then? Is anybody who desires 
allowed to propose a threat to the AT on their terms and then label the AT's 
trying to preserve itself as "coercion". That seems like base reasoning to me 
and sorrily devoid of any mention of the AT's higher conservation ethic. The 
AT has to be where it is. It has no choice...
> 
> 
> 12 Step)  Really now, why do you care? It's not like it was *your* money
> or anything. Besides, what are "greasy bucks" to you compared
> to an undeveloped Saddleback? Are you saying that all that
> talk about the preciousness of the mountain was just so much
> horseschumer?


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