[at-l] "Greens" WAS Huh? WAS Heavy metals and RnR

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 03:20 PM 3/20/2005 -0500, Carol Donaldson wrote:
>I also advocate
>overthrowing this present form of government and reinstalling the original
>Constitutional one.

That would take us back to no national parks, slavery is legal, women can't 
vote, public education though grammar school (*if* the local community 
decides to provide it), no limits on hunting/fishing and lots more good 
stuff. Yeah, all those things sound great. NOT!

>I wish we had a "green" version of Bush. Maybe then the greater
>percentage of Americans who wish to see more environmental protection 
>would be
>represented instead of worked around. But those who throw "Socialism" into a
>MacKaye discussion (I'm not accusing you Coosa) do so only as an excuse to 
>dismiss
>his greater environmental plans. The AT was one of them. The social aspect
>being a before-its-time effort at unfragmented greenway and biosphere 
>protection
>in the Appalachians. Environmentally he designed the AT's wilderness ethic 
>as a
>thing people would learn from the Trail and carry in their heads. I mean
>there are many people in power who honestly believe that as long as you 
>can be
>seen as opposite of 'socialism' that anything you do is ok. There's a lot of
>harmful and destructive things that can be justified by pointing fingers at
>political Socialism. Meanwhile, the purely environmental vestige of this 
>movement
>has merit apart from any political interpretations. Hell, if socialism 
>gave us
>the AT, then we should thank it (at least in this regard). But the wise
>understand MacKaye meant this Project as a fair balance to society's 
>progress and
>environmental destruction. That's why he got it built.
>  No, MacKaye wanted to use the experience gained from wilderness to
>spur an appreciation of biosphere protection. Today we all appreciate the
>great feeling we get from the AT. I'm not sure, however, if we have lived 
>up to
>or followed through on what MacKaye planned. The potential for this decreases
>each time the Trail is intruded into by whatever diminishes this 
>experience and
>its plan. THAT MEANS WHATEVER AND WHOEVER.

You and I have had this discussion before RnR only then instead of a "fair 
balance to society's progress and environmental destruction" you told me he 
planned the trail as a ruse to get environmental protection of the region 
and he really would have preferred that people be kept out of the area. 
It's nice to see you coming around to the idea that people have to 
encounter the wild areas to acquire an appreciation of them. That MacKaye 
was a socialist is key to that idea. He believed in wilderness not just for 
its own sake but for the betterment of man. Yes, I am really delighted to 
see that you have come to understand that.