BATTLING OVER AMERICA’s MEMORY

 

[Published in the Sunday Guardian of India]

The battle for America’s collective memory is erupting once again.

Leftists spent the last decade destroying America’s traditional identity and well-established historic narrative.  The Left filled classrooms, books, articles, parks, and museums with their mantra of a nation “built on stolen land and by slave labor”.  At the same time, they wantonly assaulted the physical touch stones of America’s origins by removing statues and other monuments. 

The Left intended to replace the connective fabric of American society with an alternative reality promoting a tyrannical communist government. They embraced the cautionary words from George Orwell’s “1984”: "Who controls the past controls the future”.

They are now howling from the roof tops as President Donald Trump is reversing their plans to reshape America.

America is unique.  It is a country based upon ideas - not based on geography, language, or tribe.  Our historic sites and markers ground us in who we are, and why we are. 

History is about collective memory and frames of reference.  Statues and historic sites are there to commemorate and remind, not to celebrate. Knowing and discussing our origin is fundamental to a civic culture where shared values hold us together.  Civil dialogue with those we disagree is the structure that allows our institutions, our communities, and ourselves to exist. 

Our Constitution is about forming “a more perfect union”.  This means America is always a work in progress.  The Constitution itself is the greatest “rules of engagement” for collective action that has ever been written.  Looking beyond ourselves to our origins reaffirms our nation and our individual and collective roles in it.

Starting in 2009, the Left anointed itself as morally entitled to determine what memories should be saved or destroyed. The chorus of Leftist commentators from the media, academia, and politics wove a tapestry of excuses justifying official and unofficial acts of destruction and desecration. Tax dollars were used to dismantle memories and insert radical anti-white, anti-capitalist, and anti-American content into classrooms, museums, and parks. This is the very essence of tyranny and fanaticism.

Humans have attempted to alter collective memory since competing Pharaohs chiseled away Cartouches and defaced hieroglyphs.  Carthage was destroyed, Rome was sacked.  Mongol hordes obliterated cities along the Silk Road.  Islamic hordes burned the Library of Alexandria.  Vikings ravaged monasteries and burned centuries old manuscripts.  Cromwell’s Puritan army smashed stained glass windows in countless churches.

World history has been saved by those who transcended their immediate impulse for destruction.  Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella calmed their Christian fervor when they saw the wonder of the Alhambra.  Napoleon’s armies avoided destroying European cities and towns during nearly twenty years of war. 

The Twentieth Century saw a disturbing shift in how history was viewed.  The rise of Communism and Nazism led to intentionally obliterating history on a strategic scale.  Worse, the followers of these dogmas made fabricating history a priority.  Destroying reality and then faking an alternative became one of the greatest threats to civilization.  Cultural treasures were lost to the ages as the Nazi’s raped Europe, the Soviets raped Eastern Europe, and Mao’s minions unleashed their Cultural Revolution.

The 21^st Century brought a new wave of Islamic hordes whose primary mission was to destroy anything, and anyone, not sufficiently promoting their fanaticism.  From the Taliban blowing up thousand-year-old Buddhist statues, to ISIS smashing the Tomb of Abraham and leveling Palmyra, the erasure of irreplaceable historic sites and artifacts has known no bounds.

Fanaticism is all about intolerance and silencing opponents.  It is all about indoctrination and erasing individualism.  Fanatics are not satisfied until they completely destroy independent thought.  Their dream is a “hive mind” - thinking and acting as one.  Leftists, Islamic radicals, and Communists want to anoint one leader who is all powerful, surrounded by blind devotion.  Their goal is the end of civilization as we know it. 

George Orwell, a Socialist who grew to understand the threat of tyranny, sent us a timeless warning: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

On March 27, 2025, President Donald Trump set about stopping the Left’s obliteration of America’s identity. He issued Executive Order 14253, stating:

“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.  This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.  Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

Trump’s Executive Order requires the Secretary of Interior to “determine whether, since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history”.

As with most Executive Orders, the Interior Secretary then issued his own detailed guidance to implement the President’s policy.  On May 20, 2025, Secretarial Order 3431 required the heads of the  various federal land units to: “take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”

The Secretary’s Order outlined a process for compiling and reporting on such instances, including soliciting public input.  These reports will be reviewed and appeals heard before actions occur.  It will be months before this process is completed.

America’s Leftists are spreading false rumors of widespread removals of slavery documents and displays.  These same Leftists previously demanded the removal of Confederate statues and tore down memorials to Lincoln and the Founding Fathers.  These same Leftists are now waving signs, “Hands Off History!” to preserve their woke legacy. 

The absurdity of the Left’s outrage is that promoting slavery was at the core of the 19^th Century Democrat Party while stopping the spread of slavery was the founding principle of the Republican Party.  This divide continued beyond the Civil War as Democrats formed the Ku Klux Klan as a paramilitary force to kill freed Blacks and their Republican supporters.  In the 20^th Century, Democrats promoted lynching of Blacks and opposed Republicans who tried to prevent this terror. 

The Left’s accusation about President Trump, and his Department of Interior, wantonly removing slavery displays is baseless.  Republicans would not erase their Party’s original reason to exist.

The Honorable Scot Faulkner served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, Director of Personnel for Reagan’s 1980 Campaign, Administrator of Personnel for the Presidential Transition, and on the White House Staff. His best-selling memoir, “Naked Emperors” is available on Amazon.com.

 

HILL TOP REALITIES

SWaN Investors have done a masterful job orchestrating an “echo chamber” of positive media.  Countless Letters to the Editor purportedly from Harpers Ferry “residents”, news releases, and unsubstantiated assertions, have flooded local media.

SWaN’s goal is to stampede four of the seven voting Members of the Harpers Ferry Town Council to ignore, bend, and invent rules in order to give the out-of-state billionaires everything they desire as quickly as possible.

Facts and laws must drive the decision that will shape the next century of Harpers Ferry. 

The first reality check is to remember that the Hill Top Hotel was fully operational the day SWaN bought it.  Tour groups filled its rooms, hungry customers lined up for Hill Top’s famous fried chicken and buffet, and community groups regularly met there. 

The second reality check is to remember that it was SWaN, no one else, who closed the Hill Top Hotel. They asserted that Hill Top must be completely torn down.  To validate their assertion, SWaN allowed Hill Top to become derelict.  No repairs occurred, windows were broken, and water seeped in, collapsing the hotel’s front facade.  Those saddened by Hill Top’s current state of disrepair should remember who is responsible.

The third reality check is that the Town of Harpers Ferry owns the roads and undeveloped paper streets that SWaN so desperately craves.  These streets were laid out by War Department engineers under President George Washington.  They were officially documented in the 1869 War Department plat.  These streets are not “fake”.  They contribute to the integrity of Harpers Ferry’s Historic District, which was established by the Department of Interior in 1976.  Harpers Ferry’s Town Ordinances do not allow for the sale or transfer of these streets to anyone. The 2016 Ordinance amendment was only intended for disposing of Personal Property. No street has ever been given, sold, or ceded to anyone since 1790.  No amount of undocumented assertions changes this.

The fourth reality check is SWaN’s heavy-handed efforts to control public access to the Promontory.  Armed thugs brandishing guns have accosted members of the community when they are on paved portions of East Ridge and Columbia Streets.  In one instance, Harpers Ferry police had to order a SWaN thug to “stand down” and retreat to actual SWaN property.  SWaN refuses to release its “Security and Safety” Policy that will dictate when the community can access the Promontory.  Their secret policy could all but eliminate access. 

SWaN’s proposed land swap of their nearly vertical property for all the adjoining paper streets would bankrupt Harpers Ferry.  Accessing the Promontory using a massive zig-zagging wooden stairway would generate lawsuits and costs for making the 45% incline comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  No-one in a wheel chair, on crutches, or infirm may be able to enjoy one of our region’s greatest vistas.

The fifth reality check is that the number of Harpers Ferry visitors has increased since Hill Top Hotel closed in March 2008.  That year 260,000 visitors entered the Park.  In 2017, there were 342,534 Park visitors, an increase of 31.7 percent.  Since Hill Top closed, Harpers Ferry has been listed as one of America’s top tourist destinations in countless travel magazines and websites.  Harpers Ferry is certainly not a dying ghost town portrayed by SWaN’s acolytes.

The final reality check is about the true nature of SWaN and its proponents.  None of those appearing at Town meetings, or writing as “residents”, were involved, in any way, with the thirty preservation initiatives, since 1988, that saved the historic and scenic resources of the Harpers Ferry area from being destroyed. None of SWaN’s “community” proponents helped with the 50^th Anniversary of the Park, the Centennial of the Second Niagara Movement, or any of the Sesquicentennial commemorations of the John Brown Raid or the area’s Civil War battles. 

No one from SWaN even had the decency to attend the funeral of Bill Stanhagen, the person who sold Hill Top to SWaN.

These are the realities of the Hill Top project, and its supporters. 

Hopefully, they will be aired during the March 9 Town Workshop on the Concept Plan.

Scot Faulkner is President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and co-chaired the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Park.

‘Let’s be truthful’ on Hilltop House

BACKGROUND:

Steven Ramberg has been Harpers Ferry’s most vocal advocate for giving SWaN Investors everything they desire for developing the Hilltop House properties.  As Chair of the Planning Commission, Ramberg was relentless in making sure SWaN’s Overlay District became a reality. 

Ramberg’s wife, Betsy Bainbridge, is the most vocal SWaN partisan on the Harpers Ferry Town Council.  She has been the driving force behind the new ordinances, and the Overlay District.

Together, Ramberg and Bainbridge have used strong-arm tactics and intimidation to make sure SWaN’s project moves forward, no matter how many oppose it within the Harpers Ferry community.

It was no surprise that on February 15, 2017, Ramberg wrote a blistering Letter-to-the Editor of the Spirit of Jefferson assailing the National Park Service for raising federal concerns by letter and in remarks before the Town Council.

The following response was published in the Spirit of Jefferson on February 22, 2017.

It is unfortunate that the nine-year struggle over the Hilltop House project has been plagued by lack of valid information and an abundance of disinformation.  The recent letter sent by National Park Service to the Town of Harpers Ferry was an attempt to sort reality from rhetoric.

The National Park Service has a legal responsibility to protect the historic integrity of Harpers Ferry.  Without the Park Service, Harpers Ferry would be under 200 feet of water from a proposed Potomac River Dam in the 1940s. Without the Park Service, the C&O Canal would be a four-lane highway proposed in the 1960s.  Harpers Ferry is now facing another fundamental threat from an oversized project that would loom over the town and the Park.  The National Park Service is obligated to step forward to raise concerns and probe for answers.

The Park Service letter contains a well-established check list of issues arising from the National Environmental Protection Act, Section 106 of the Historic Preservation Act, and laws governing National Historic Districts.  These federal issues can be raised at any time, and must be fully resolved. There are additional regulatory issues affecting CSX, Amtrak, MARC, Maryland Transit Administration, and the Chesapeake Bay that must also be addressed.

The Park Service has a substantial investment in Harpers Ferry and has a legal responsibility to assess the impact of SWaN Investors’ Project on these federally funded operations.  This includes the Park’s annual funding for Harpers Ferry’s Police. Town documents pledge police to support SWaN’s construction.  The Park Service is the largest ratepayer to Harpers Ferry Water Works.  From 1988-1990, the Park directly funded and project managed the rebuilding of the Water Works’ intakes, pumps, mainline pipes, and water tanks.  Town documents pledge to meet all of SWaN’s water requests.

The federally funded Potomac Street rehabilitation project, managed by the Town, has also impacted the Park.  Federal funds were diverted from the original approved grant to enlarge the storm water system to handle the anticipated runoff from SWaN’s properties.  One result has been storm water now bubbling up onto Park property.

Mr. Ramberg’s Letter-to-the-Editor asserts, “no one has proposed any blasting to my knowledge”.  This is interesting, because in a December 7, 2015 letter, Mr. Ramberg wrote to Gordon Associates, a SWaN contractor: “I am wondering about an issue that keeps arising.  Did SWaN ever contemplate blasting for the garage or elsewhere on the site in the original concept proposal?”  Gordon Associates responds to Ramberg, “Blasting was expected for the construction of utilities, garage, and hotel.” 

On March 28, 2008, Gordon Associates sent Mr. Ramberg their “Surface Exploration and Geotechnical Evaluation for the Project”.  It clearly identifies multiple locations for blasting of the bed rock and outlines warnings for proceeding.

Harpers Ferry sits primarily on shale.  Most of Harpers Ferry’s structures are all or part masonry.  Any reverberations from blasting will affect the structural integrity of basements, foundations, and walls in buildings dating to 1748.  Harpers Ferry National Historical Park has more historic structures than any other Park unit in America.  The August 2011 Virginia earthquake caused over $1 million in structural damage throughout the Park.  It is therefore prudent for the Park to be concerned about blasting.  A reasonable approach would be for the U.S. Geological Survey to conduct a blasting impact analysis before the Harpers Ferry Town Council approves their Ordinance.

In his letter, Mr. Ramberg questions the integrity and motivations of Park officials, while dismissing valid concerns as hysteria. He insists that the Town’s Ordinance must be enacted so we will know what needs to be changed.   This is why the SWaN project destroyed public trust and divided Harpers Ferry long before the Park’s letter.

Losing our Memory

The following article was published on the History News Network 

http://hnn.us/articles/losing-our-national-historic-parks-and-our-memory

Six months before the Afghan-based Al Qaeda terrorists blew up the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the Afghan-based Taliban blew up the 1700-year old Bamiyan Buddha statues [1].  The world decried this wanton destruction of history.

Unfortunately, every day America’s history is also being wantonly destroyed.  These touchstones of our national identity are not being leveled by Taliban tanks, but by developer bulldozers.

America is in the middle of commemorating the 150^th Anniversary of its Civil War and the Bicentennial of the War of 1812.  It is heart breaking to watch these events against a backdrop of impending threats to core historical properties and viewsheds.

“Sprawl and commercial development are threatening the historic sites where our nation was forged and shaped,” Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) recently said.  “Each time a historic battlefield is replaced with a parking lot, a chapter of American history is obscured, and future generations lose an important window onto their heritage.”

Thirty acres of America’s history are lost each day.  Over twenty percent of America’s battlefields are already lost forever, of the remaining 3+ million acres only fifteen percent are protected by National Parks. [3] While additional acres are protected by state and local parks and by private organizations, the threat to America’s collective memory remains tragically real and immediate.

On September 11, 2012 the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2489 reauthorizing and expanding the American Battlefield Protection Program (ABPP).  This legislation also covers Revolutionary War and War of 1812 battlefields. Since 1999, the program’s matching grants have helped save more than 16,500 acres of historic sites in 14 states. [4]

The ABPP is currently seeking public comment on its latest report, which details the threats to 383 Civil War sites (Deadline October 12, 2012). [5] Unfortunately, detailed reports and a matching grant program are too little too late.

What is needed is a priority comprehensive federal initiative to save America’s memory.  This should be embraced by leaders across the political spectrum.  Liberals can rally around open spaces and preservation.  Conservatives can rally around making sure patriotic sacred ground and sites that establish America’s exceptionalism remain intact and in context for future generations.

Step One – Identify the land.  The ABPP has already identified core and contributing battlefield land in detail.  Groups such as the Civil War Trust have gone further to identify ownership parcel by parcel.  This information, along with data from local historical groups, should be compiled into both a national map and a set of battle-specific “metes and bounds” setting the stage for Omnibus Battlefield Boundary legislation.

Step Two – Create and pass Omnibus Battlefield Boundary legislation, which would expand the boundaries of existing national parks to encompass all battlefield land.  Where National Parks (battlefields, historical parks, monuments) do not currently exist, establish national historic areas that authorize cooperative agreements with state, local, and private entities to preserve this land. These arrangements would be similar to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District. [6]

Step Three – Authorize and appropriate sufficient funds within the Department of Interior’s existing Land & Water Conservation Fund to purchase all the battlefield land.  The current state of America’s economy prevents state and local government, and private groups, from buying land.  Only a fully funded federal effort will meet preservation needs before it is too late. 

Conservatives will balk at this program, but they should view it as stimulating the economy by jump starting the real estate market and family farms.  Most battlefield land is near urban areas and will vanish under developer bulldozers once the real estate market returns (current predictions are for normal sales activity by 2014 and a return to January 2006 market conditions by 2020). [7] Many farmers view their undeveloped land as their 401k investment.  Why not provide them with the ability to cash-in and at the same time save history?

Property rights conservatives will want to avoid eminent domain and have land bought from willing sellers at market rates. The main problem is that, by law, the federal government has to pay appraised value instead of asking price.  While appraisals prevent fraud and extortion, they do not reflect the fact that many of these battlefield properties are “under water” – worth less than their original purchase price or their current mortgage.  There needs to be a way to create clearly documented and reviewed waivers that allow federal realty officials to purchase battlefield land over and above appraised value. Congressional review and/or Federal Register publication with public comment prior to finalizing sales contracts could avoid problems.

Fiscal conservatives will be concerned about increasing the ongoing operational costs for this newly preserved battlefield.  Most unprotected battlefield land is agricultural.  The National Park Service could lease this land back to farmers, thus generating revenue while preserving the land. As this land is contiguous to existing Parks, existing Park personnel would monitor the land.  They probably drive by much of this land while monitoring existing Park acreage anyway.  Additional funds for archeology and public access/interpretation would be decided via normal Park management processes.  The main intent of this legislation is to preserve battlefield land while the realty market is stagnant.  This land will be lost forever once the realty market returns.

Step Four – Mandate a sense of urgency with the National Park Service and provide focused leadership to make sure this mandate is promptly and properly implemented.  This is fundamental to the success of this initiative because too many Park officials mouth preservation platitudes while doing nothing.  It is well documented that some lower level functionaries find ways not to do their job, that too many front line Park officials refuse to think outside their existing boundaries when developing their General Management Plans, that career regional and national Park leaders play internal power games and squander resources on pet projects, and that officials at individual Parks remain unwilling to protect land within their existing Park boundaries from development threats.  Top to bottom reform of the National Park Service will take time and needs to be mounted as part of a general management effort.  It must not stand in the way of this timely rescue.

Historian David McCullough stated, "History is who we are and why we are the way we are." America has a rapidly vanishing opportunity to preserve land on which its collective memory resides.  Failure to fully meet this current challenge will undermine America’s unique identity for generations to come.

[Scot Faulkner is President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and a Trustee with The Journey Through Hallowed Ground]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1326063/After-1700-years-Buddhas-fall-to-Taliban-dynamite.html 

[2] http://holt.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1047&Itemid=18

[3] http://www.civilwar.org/take-action/save-a-battlefield/

[4] Op Cit Holt http://holt.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1047&Itemid=18

[5] http://historycoalition.org/2012/09/14/national-park-service-seeks-input-on-civil-war-battlefield-preservation/

[6] https://www.cfda.gov/?s=program&mode=form&tab=step1&id=06c9a62e6758e4c455c97037e3ff7b4e

[7] http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2012/05/housing-markets

Why Visit A Civil War Battlefield?

This article appeared on http://www.hnn.us/articles/138312.html
The audio version of this article is at http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=19791

April 20, 2011 · “A war was fought. The right side won. What else do we need to know?” That person’s comment was recently posted on one of my websites.

Americans have been commemorating the 150th anniversary of our Civil War since October 16, 2009. On that date in 1859, a cataclysmic event wrenched America into its bloodiest war.

John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry, was the “September 11” of the 19th Century. Commemorating the actual war began on April 12, 2011 – the sesquicentennial of the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, South Carolina.

What should we do to remember a four-year war that ended slavery, reunited a country, but also resulted in 1,030,000 casualties (3 percent of the U.S. population), including 620,000 soldier deaths?

We have already seen its politicization by both extremes – souring general interest in the era. This proves that America’s Civil War continues to leave deep legacies, and scars, on our nation’s physical, political, and psychological landscape.

As the weather warms, why should people spend their limited recreation and reflection time visiting a Civil War battlefield?

History enthusiasts have long studied America’s Civil War. Its first battles echoed Napoleon’s wars while the last ones anticipated the bloody trench warfare of World War I. A full century of change in military technology and dogma was compressed into four years.

Those who study management have for years looked to the Civil War for timeless lessons in problem solving, planning, communication and leadership. The Civil War offers countless examples of brilliance and stupidity that provide insights into modern business, government and life.

Why should everyone else visit a battlefield?

First we as a nation, and as individual citizens, need to remember who we are and why we are. America’s Civil War was not some arm wrestling contest where the winner took all. It was a time when everyone in this nation - from founding families to new immigrants – was impacted by its violence.

Why America is what it is today was shaped more by the events of April 12, 1861 to April 9, 1865, than any other time period, including World War II. Walking on ground, that was fundamental to shaping our national identity and culture offers insights beyond any book, movie or television show.

Most Americans in 1860 had not traveled more than a day’s walk from their home. The Civil War unified our nation while it was tearing it apart. Northern and Southern soldiers, alike, saw parts of the country for the first time as well as encountered other ethnic and national groups.

Those left on the home front read and learned about new people and places more than at any time prior to the war. No other set of events moved America from a country of isolated communities into a national identity.

The events of the Civil War shaped a generation of citizens who led America into the 20th Century. Some who served in battle went onto become Presidents, Cabinet Members, Congressmen, Senators, Governors and Judges. Understanding their experiences helps us understand the political and social forces at work in America up to and beyond today.

Walking on a battlefield is a window into our past. Many battlefields have preserved the landscape and structures of an earlier era. Seeing what others before us saw is the closest we may come to a time machine. It opens our minds to why things happened and why things are happening.

Walking on a battlefield with your family offers opportunity for learning and dialogue. Young people may ask why a road, railroad, or town was located where it was. This stimulates curiosity that leads to learning. Enough experiences and questions can prepare a young mind to become an engaged and thinking adult.

Reflecting on our past and the “why” that underlies previous actions develops life skills that will well serve a person in their professional, personal, and community endeavors.

Walking on a battlefield is also about recreation and open spaces. Formal parks and sports venues cannot provide the nonlinear joy of wandering. Those of us on the East Coast do not have as many natural national and state parks as the west. Historical parks, and battlefield parks in particular, give us an opportunity to “amble”.

As John Muir once stated, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul”.

During the next four years there will be many commemorative events designed to honor those who fought in America’s Civil War and to grapple with their complex actions and motivations. These special events will add additional activities and insights to our battlefields. Whether you plan a battlefield visit to take advantage of Sesquicentennial-themed gatherings or just go to a site that is nearby, you and your family will be richer for the experience.

[Photo by Jim Davison]

Bomar's Boondoggle

It is just one hundred and ten days before the election, but the National Park Service is working overtime to waste tax dollars. National Park Service Director Mary Bomar is requiring everyone one of her cash-strapped park superintendents to attend a summit on increasing the capacity of National Parks.

The numbers are impressive. Four hundred and seventy-nine officials, including thirty-two from headquarters, are meeting at the Snowbird resort in Utah. Each attendee must pay their own way from their own budget. Travel alone runs around $479,000. The stay at Snowbird piles up an additional $154,000 using government summer per diem rates for the area.

For two-days, attendees heard inspirational presentations from outside speakers and discussed the changing nature of park attendance. No one was bold enough to mention that Bomar’s “Core Operations” (see my February 15, 2008 blog – “National Treasures”) has gutted park operations or that its official intent has been to eliminate or dramatically reduce public programs in each park. The workshops on “increasing capacity” were also a joke as Bomar and her predecessor, Fran Mainella, have presided over a strategic crippling of Park Service capacity.

The official media releases from the summit offer a cheery tableau of unity and rekindling of team spirit. The last release talks about an “emotional closing”, including putting together a time capsule to pass on to a new generation of leaders. Bomar even waxed poetic about parks being special places. The final component of this “Potemkin village” was screening excerpts of PBS’s new series on National Parks. Instead of forcing park professionals to attend this taxpayer-funded swan song for Bush operatives, the money should have been spent on saving our history. We don’t need new propaganda-inspired time capsules. We need real resources to reverse seven years of wanton disregard for our heritage.

It is a sad commentary on how the Bush Administration has so decimated the Park Service, and so demoralized its ranks, that the careerist attendees were afraid to use the summit to launch a full-scale rebellion against these years of abuse. There needs to be a full accounting for the years of neglect and under-funding that have occurred under Bush and his henchmen. Thankfully, the Interior’s Department Inspector General is beginning to probe into how years of mismanagement have destroyed national treasures and are placing many more items at risk. We can only hope the next President takes decisive action to erase and reverse Bush’s shameful legacy.

Inside Baseball

There are daily reminders why Americans hold their Congress in such low regard. Today’s example comes from a “dust-up” between Representative Nick Rahall (D-WV) and the Secretary of Interior. It is all outlined in the June 19 issue of The Washington Post.

The National Park Foundation decided to hold a reception celebrating National Parks. Unilever underwrote the festivities. The “dust-up” occurred when the announced venue was the Capitol Hill Club, the national Republican club situated across from the Cannon House Office Building.

On April 21, Rahall wrote Interior Secretary Kirk Kempthorne decrying the partisan venue. National Park Director, Mary Bomar, responded to Rahall on May 30, defending the location.

This is the kind of “inside baseball” that fills an average day in our nation’s Capital. Minor slights over protocol can derail major policy initiatives. Personal feuds can sink compromises. Egos get in the way of the peoples’ business.

The case of Rep. Rahall, taking the time to engage over a reception’s venue, and the media’s reporting, gives us a glimpse into a strange parallel universe where such things matter.

Over the last four years the Bush Administration has been gutting the National Park Service under the guise of a management review called “Core Operations” (see my February 15, 2008 blog – “National Treasures"). Entire park units have been closed, major education programs have been curtailed, and priceless national treasures have been put at risk. Yet, not one hearing or public letter from Rep. Rahall on the wanton and fundamental destruction of one of the major agencies under his committee's jurisdiction.

This is one more reason why there is so much disdain for Congress. Real things happen, that affect real Americans, and nothing is said or done. The priority and zeal is for making an issue out of the trivial. The only value of these minor issues is to placate the ego of some official or provide an opportunity for some pedantic partisan cheap shot. Shame on Congress, for wallowing in non-issues to the detriment of those that really matter. Shame on The Washington Post, for covering such stories while ignoring the real world.

National Treasures

I do not understand why the Bush Administration hates the National Park Service (NPS).

Over the last seven years the Bush Administration has under funded park operations by over $600 million a year. They have also created a $5 billion backlog in deferred maintenance. They have also reorganized in ways designed to hamper land acquisition and derail private partnerships and donations. These actions have ground construction and land acquisition to a virtual halt. The President’s FY 2009 Budget identifies $351 million in unobligated NPS construction funds and $185 million in unobligated land acquisition funds. These NPS funds are found on pages 649-650 of the President’s budget appendix (pdf pages 53-54). http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/appendix/int.pdf

However, the most heinous Administration actions strike at the fundamental survival of the National Park System. The Bush Administration has been secretly shutting down park operations and undermining our park system through a program called “Core Operations”.

“Core Operations” is mandating that every national park reduce its current operations by at least twenty percent over the next five years. In addition, each park is being told that they will have to absorb all cost increases related to inflation, personnel, and benefits within these reduced budgets. “Core Operations” has already resulted in wholesale terminations of public programs, firings and forced transfers of personnel, and the closing some park units. All this is being done without public knowledge or input. In fact, this program’s guidelines specifically ban public input and prevents park managers from considering customer and stakeholder interests.

The first signs of this resource starvation have recently surfaced in a report from the Inspector General of the Department of Interior. That report disclosed how the National Park Police are being plagued by low moral, poor leadership, and bad organization. Most importantly, the report sounds the alarm that our national monuments are at risk http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/02/06/travel/14_50_482_4_08.txt.

The Administration’s reaction to this report, and other reality checks, is denial and punitive efforts to silence its critics. Theresa Chambers learned what happens when career officials speak out about what is really happening. In 2004, Ms. Chambers, as the Chief of the U.S. Park Police, spoke out about the Bush Administration’s neglect and its impact on our national parks and monuments. Her concern for our nation’s treasures earned her a rapid demotion.

The Park Service is not always the most efficient or effective at preserving our national treasures and providing public programs. We all remember the $1 million spent in 1988 on an “environmentally friendly” outhouse in Glacier National Park http://www.jldr.com/oh1mill.html and the $330,000 spent in 1997 on an outhouse along the Appalachian Trail that did not have any running water http://www.theplumber.com/outhouse.html. But such fiascos do not justify the current systematic undermining and dismantling of the agency protecting our national treasures.

If the Bush Administration is right about our being in a global struggle against radical Islam then it should be of paramount importance that we preserve and protect the icons that define our nation. During the Christmas season the Bush White House made a big show of promoting the Park Service. The official Christmas tree featured park ornaments and the family’s dogs became junior Park Rangers in the annual Bush Christmas video. There is clearly a disconnect between these symbolic acts and the Bush administration’s own jihad against our national treasures.

This assault on the Park Service comes at a pivotal time in America. We are facing a major crisis in our civic culture. We are victims of our own success. Today we can watch 100 different television stations and visit millions of websites. This means we are no longer obtaining information in any common format or source. We are rapidly losing the collective experience and collective memory that are the foundation of a civic culture. We no longer have a common frame of reference that defines us as Americans and as a nation.

The collapse of civic culture has ended more civilizations than invasions and disease. This is not about immigration or diversity. It is about how we maintain our public values and institutions when people forget who we are and how our system works. In West Virginia public high schools civics is now an elective. Guides at the U.S. Capitol have to explain federalism and the three branches of government to US tourists and school groups.

The basic principles of our civic culture, and the history that created it, must be taught as a central part of preparing the next generation. One way to preserve our civic culture is to support the stewards of our collective memory – the 388 units of our national park system. This fundamental concept seems to be lost on President Bush, Secretary Kempthorne, and Park Director Bomar. We may have to wait until the next President before there is a clear commitment to preserving our past in order to assure our future.