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Thanks for the link. I bookmarked it because it's getting late here and I should have gotten offline an hour ago.

I don't think Congressional oversight or disciplinary actions will do ANYTHING. "Counceling". Pffttt.

I posted links on this thread to organizations that support a better way of doig things. We have to find a way of selling this better way to the city-bound armchair-environmentalists who who know nothing of the consequenses of enviro-wackoism. These naive people, who have never spent much time actually interacting with the environment, don't have a clue.

One thing that's needed is TV time. Media coverage of this scandal. Documentaries of the land grabs, denial of water rights, and denial of water needed to fight wildfires. Documentaries detailing the overpopulated red foxes now dying by the age of two due to mange and scabies. The problem bears we deal with in the country after they've been relocated to rural areas because stupid tourists feed them until they become dangerous. Acres of oak, maple and other habitat freindly trees on the sides of hills clearcut by overpopulated beavers. Etc. Interveiws with those who make these documentaries and write these books.

How do we sell this information to the public at large?

I am really glad you wrote what you did, because it is the disaster of socialist ecosystem management that must be publicized but I don't that it should be the first step. Here is why:

Atlas Shrugged was a great story. Unfortunately, every event and character followed Rand's Rules. Because her story came out according to plan, she was never forced to confront the justification for the bureaucracy she hated. IMHO Rand failed to make the kind of change that her criticisms of socialism justified because she never developed her free enterprise solutions beyond a very sketchy level.

If we publicize those fascist failings in the environment without something to replace it we will merely get bigger budgets (which will be spent on continued acquisitions), more bureaucracy, and the dirty aspects of the patronage system will go further underground. The last thing I want is to make the environment a victim of the welfare state.

That is why we need a complete philosophy that can be subjected to rigorous logical test, an implementing political and legal strategy, and THEN go about DOING something to show what can be done. That process has already quietly started, even though the book has been out for only a couple of months. It is selling into little pockets of activists who need a tool and are willing to do the work to learn to use it. It's not selling widely because it's too much work for most people to read and the publisher has no money left for PR. So people are waiting to see if it is worth the effort by watching what happens elsewhere... (sigh). Hopefully, that initial success, as well as the mere sign of hope on the faces and in the hearts of landowners will interest the existing band of "free market" grandstanders who understand the issues and have the financial wherewithal and reputation to make the story go. They can take credit for it.

Once people learn a few things, the popular story that teaches the solution will be obvious and the financing to make it happen will be there, at least I hope so. It may also give me the time and resources to find a co-author more familiar with developing characters or even to take the whole thing with some consultation. I have other fish to fry.