COURAGE AWARD: THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE ALT NATIONAL PARKS
Anyone who has been paying attention to the grim and destructive ways the trumpers are handling the “transition” can’t miss where they are going as far as selling off public lands to their billionaire buddies so they can extract rare earths and fossil fuels, leave the parks in a shambles, and walk away. A more appropriate term might be how the Trumpers are handling the final demolition of much of what we thought was the best of our government, like National Parks, as well as what appears to be some random destruction because “we can.”
During the first disaster with Trump, I began seeing some scrappy posts from a group calling itself ALT NATIONAL PARKS. Our National Parks are a treasure that people from around the world flock to see. Until the trumpers, even a cheapskate Republican congress would grumble but generally back NPS funding, not always adequately- they provided good tourism revenue, amazing natural beauty, and until the trumpers came along, there was even a sense of pride by all political factions that we had these amazing conserved areas. It sadly seems like the MAGAt’s have moved beyond being impressed with anything that is natural, not expensive or not exclusive, not shiny and fake, so a national park- where any rube can enjoy themselves- we don’t like those any longer. You want to enjoy yourself, go all METAVERSE: who needs pesky nature when you can stay home, sit on your butt, and watch pretend nature. And Zuckerberg keeps wondering why are not all clamoring for VR goggles. They are already creating plans to sell off public lands to Musk’s friends so they can murder any wildlife in their quest to destroy this planet so they can then go demolish Mars. This must be stopped!
Our friends at Alt National Parks are doing great work: The Alt National Park Service is the official resistance team of the US National Park Service. It is unclear whether there are actually any currently employed rangers in their group, but they clearly are in good contact. Their mission is to stand up for the National Park Service and to help protect and preserve the environment for future generations. The creators of the site call themselves “rogue rangers, not government employees.” But, they are heavily into the protection of public lands, furthering and respecting science, helping keep our public lands public. Alt National Parks wants Americans and world travelers to be able to access these special places.
The Alt National Park act as whistle blowers, a type of bravery needed right now, and being criminalized by the fascists quickly. Yesterday (Saturday, February 1) Alt Nat’l Park Service revealed that Musk has been infiltrating the treasury office to figure out how to illegally cut off allocated funding for projects this unelected fascist thinks don’t meet his needs. The discussion on the site is one after my heart: where is Congress when this POS is illegally stealing any and all information about the American public? He already manipulated the voting systems, so when he has the highest clearance to get into any systems, he can change anything. He is part of the reason we will likely never have another free and fair election unless we can get rid of all of them. We really need this information: the trump monsters have sent around memos rescinding all seasonal offers for parks employees: meaning the parks will be way understaffed, since a huge percentage of workers are seasonal. We can’t count on the corporate media or definitely not the liars in trumpworld to actually share what is really going on in the parks.
One last plea: if you have family or formerly close friends who are in the cult, try to remind them of the beauty of nature- I find it hard to believe that there are many people as hard and hateful as Musk and Trump when it comes to a true hatred of all that is wild and free in nature. If those two can’t control it, they want to destroy it.
Courage to continue, Alt National Park Service- we need you.
My daughter works for the forest service in the summer and this coming summer she is supposed to be on a fire team. They are hearing that the supplemental pay they received was part of the Infrastructure Act and therefore probably not going to be offered this year. Most of these workers do 16 days straight, at least 10 hour days and then get 3 days off before another 16 on. This is very hard work and not worth it if they only get minimum wage. It looks like many wildland engines will be very understaffed this year.