- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the agency’s 121-year history. Not a budget cut. Not a policy shift. Not a “reorganization.” An execution.
They’re ripping the headquarters out of Washington and shipping it to Salt Lake City, Utah — the beating heart of the anti-public-lands movement in America. They’re shuttering every single one of the ten regional offices that have governed this agency since Gifford Pinchot built the system over a century ago — and with them, the career professionals who spent entire lifetimes earning the expertise and the authority to push back when politicians came calling with bad ideas and worse motives. They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone. And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees called “state directors,” embedded in state capitals alongside the very governors, legislators, and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers demanding that the Forest Service log more, protect less, and get out of the way.
You must log in or # to comment.
God fucking damnit I can’t write what I want to here
Although you can’t write it, I imagine many of us are feeling the same way.
Don’t these things require congressional approval?
Oh yeah I forgot they just ignore everyone and do what they want
Good luck getting ANY of these offices back
Trump is the biggest idiot on the planet.
whos gonna sweep the forests now?
Some more detail can be found here.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-trump-not-closing-061142459.html
Except it tried to minimize what these pieces of crap are doing.
As stated above, “They’re ripping the headquarters out of Washington and shipping it to Salt Lake City, Utah — the beating heart of the anti-public-lands movement in America. They’re shuttering every single one of the ten regional offices that have governed this agency since Gifford Pinchot built the system over a century ago — and with them, the career professionals who spent entire lifetimes earning the expertise and the authority to push back when politicians came calling with bad ideas and worse motives. They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science, the kind you literally cannot restart once it’s gone. And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees called “state directors,” embedded in state capitals alongside the very governors, legislators, and industry lobbyists who have spent their careers demanding that the Forest Service log more, protect less, and get out of the way.”
This follows the same old conservative playbook of sabotaging and defending an agency that they hate (because it actually has enforceable rules for the rich) and then complain about it’s ineffectiveness while trying to convince you rules to close it down.
Then they can buy our protected forest lands and put in data centers and taco bells. You guys are SO dumb
Considering the rhetoric of the story, and the misinformation, I don’t put much stock into it. Yahoo has never been a source of biased information and I have no idea who the other source is, or who their sources are (Facebook?).
The yahoo article is talking about a facebook post. The main article is talking about the USDA press release.
The press release is talking about shuttering research facilities and “consolidating” them as if forestry research is the kind of thing that sits on a table and can be moved easily.
It goes on to talk about reorganizing base on state level instead of regions and how this “strengthens federalism”. Those regions aren’t as arbitrary as state borders. The forestry service mission was split up like that because those regions have different needs. Colorado and Wyoming do not need separate forestry offices.
Repeating points from a press release does not make a source unbiased, it makes them have the same bias as the source.
Agreed.
I’m wondering, when will your country stop using the dummy dollar for international trade? When will your country stop buying dummy weapons? Why do the dummies have a UN veto?
When will your country stop enabling the dummies? That doesn’t seem all that smart to me.
Not that it makes any difference anymore, but the Forest Service was created by several acts of Congress, and the president has zero authority to dissolve it.
Since we live in a fascist dictatorship run by a dementia-riddled orange pedophile, I guess it doesn’t matter. But I still felt the need to point it out.
If you read the article though, it’s not as simple as being dissolved. They’re just massively reorganizing how it’s run so it’s dysfunctional and the original mission is lost. They’re letting states (industry) have dominating access and control over USFS policies and shutting down long running and irreplaceable research projects. Like RFK’s CDC, if you stop testing and gathering facts, you can then justify any policy you want.
Can you provide a source for research being shut down? Only thing I’ve seen stated is research being moved to a centralized location, but nowhere has anyone stated whether any research is being shut down, and that would thus he speculation
They are closing the labs where the work is happening. You can’t just throw your experiment in the back seat of your car and drive to Colorado.
And how can you centralize research when so much of it is location specific? It’s costs more money to fund “off site” long distance research on a temporary basis versus having something local and long term.
Luckily that reorganization is also illegal, and this will be reversed in the courts
and this will be reversed in the courts
Eventually, after much of the damage is done and essentually irreversible.
Yeah, but that will take months, and in the meantime, the offices are closed, people are out of jobs, research is interrupted and lost. 9 months from now, the courts will tell them it’s illegal, and they’ll just say, “So what?”
They still get what they want anyway, so who cares if it’s illegal? It won’t stop until people start going to prison.
Let’s not forget it’s not all the orange baboons fault. He is surrounded by a gaggle of buffoons that itch to do his bidding, the checks and balances have been bought and paid for. This is a systemic failure of our government that has been guaranteed since big money got into lobbying. If not for big PACS and private donors trump would not be able to accomplish all the shit he has done. The wild dog has been let off the leash and any body that disagrees gets bit. Don’t give trump all the credit he’s not that smart, there are plenty of players in this game that makes it possible for us to get so utterly fucked. Remember this at the ballot box, and make damned sure every person you know does too. Let’s not forget voter complacency is partly to blame here, our country doesn’t fail us like this without our complacency.
I like your last point. The American people long ago fell asleep at the wheel. We either gobble up propaganda and vote for his insanity or don’t think it matters and sit out. Chickens are coming home to roost.
Indeed, for that to matter, the US constitution would have to be enforced, against the executive.
In 3 months a judge will declare it illegal. It will have been too late.
The members of the Forestry service are the only ones who can stop this. They can refuse to move to Salt Lake and they can refuse any unlawful orders.
Unfortunately they’ll have to risk their careers, and their physical well being to do it.
And they will still push ahead with it.
Ah, Justice.
Blitzkrieg Policies. He did it back in his 1st term but no one listened or learned.
It will have been too late
the burden of prophecy 😭
How about we just give it a bit, eh?
Comical at this point. Eventually people just stop following these “orders”.
Rome fell when most of its population no longer saw its government as legitimate.
Any American regression is still seen as a win by this man.
Eventually people just stop following these “orders”.
Will they though? So far there seems to be an endless supply of eager serfs willing to carry out every single order of his.
Eventually is too late.
Right now is also too late. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
I love you. This is something so many people need to hear, and crucially, understand.
It’s a special kind of whataboutism to always claim that nothing is good enough. Nudges in the right direction matter. We’re so tied up in the perfect solution that the nudges fail, and here we are.
It’s a special kind of whataboutism to always claim that nothing is good enough.
It’s also doomerism. I always point out that - idk, 90% is not the same as 100% - but emotionally I totally get it. I would not want to live in the USA right now.
I cope by doing cool shit.
Everything you post here is logged. Act accordingly.
https://www.fiftyfifty.one/organizer-resources
Build or join a safe space where you can do cool shit too.
A few fucking traitors growing spines could fix all of this.
In theory so could a single bullet.
It’s never too late, just too late for doing it “following the Rule of Law”.
Start filling the molotovs
…with these gas prices??
Especially because of these gas prices
Tired of this dystopian show. Can someone change the channel already?
I hear the US has ~400 million civilian-owned channel-changers.
Won’t someone- anyone- finish it?
Please think of the Chiltern!
I promise, Donald is.
We can’t afford forest anymore. We got wars to fight.
This is what you voted for protest-non-voters.
Think there’s just more non-voters than this mythically influential “protest voter” everyone keeps talking about. How about we focus on mandatory voting laws and anti-gerrymandering instead of falling for psyops talking points?
You’re really telling me 89 million people “protested” by staying at home, when Kamala lost by 0.96% of the eligible voting population? Or did these people just not care to even show up no matter what?
Sounds like you’re looking to find who’s responsible. I’m interested in informing protest-non-voters what they voted for.
That’s nice, but that doesn’t help us prevent our current predicament, or stop the alienation of disenfranchised voters in the future. Hispanics by and large also voted for Trump, and those were not “protest votes”. That does not mean they deserve the inhumane treatment ICE is perpetuating towards them.
There are 89 million untapped voters, Democrats should be salivating over that. Instead they are pairing with the Cheneys and moving farther right.
Harris broke fundraising records with her candidacy with 64% of those donations being first time donors. They actually could have had the momentum to mobilize non-voters. Instead they capitulated to corporate interests as usual.
Again, the problem isn’t “protest voters”, they are such a small percentage. People focusing on this are ignoring a lot of other factors, and honestly it seems like another way to scapegoat a DNC systemic problem.
See? Again, I’m informing protest-non-voters what they voted for. Ciao.
This is what you voted for liberals.
Pretty sure liberals largely voted correctly actually
Perpetuating a cycle of weak, corporate candidates that allowed for the Republicans to get to this point is not correct, actually.
If someone voted for Dems, this isn’t what they voted for.
Perpetuating a cycle of weak, corporate candidates that just allowed the Republicans to get stronger and stronger? Yeah mate, you did.
Lol funny how you try to turn voting into not voting, and not voting into … something else. Anyways, see article and remember, this is what you voted for protest-non-voters. Ciao.
I didn’t say anything about non-voters, nor did I equate voting with not voting. Funny how you just make shit up.
Um, technically, this is what they not voted for. As many of them just abstained from voting. Also, with the electoral college most who “protest voted” lived in heavy blue areas.
The election went for the republicans because Kamala refused to distance herself from Joe Biden and also massive campaigns of vote suppression in Georgia and elsewhere.
But yeah, argue with other leftists, it’s not like a fragmented left is the reason fascists keep winning or anything.
Edit: Seems like a lot of people on here don’t know how the electoral college works and also want to feel smug about how they voted. Typical. I’ll say it for the people in the back. We need all fucking hands on deck right now as our government is currently descending further into fascism. The last election doesn’t matter. Register to vote. Organize with your neighbors to protect your local polling places. Donate time or money to local mutual aid. If you don’t know where or how you can start at either link below.
https://www.fiftyfifty.one/organizer-resources
https://southerncoalition.org/resources/rapid-response-101/
Most importantly don’t be a smug asshole and instead think “What would I have done in 1933 Nazi Germany.” We need all the help we can get.
Also sounds like you’re looking to blame. I am looking to inform protest-non-voters what they voted for. And yes this is what they voted for.
They aren’t leftists. -They’re advocating for the old neoliberal candidate which was/is center-right
Also leftists are anti-genocide.
