Jack Burns Lives!

“Anarchism is democracy taken seriously.”-Edward Abbey

I hear a lot of talk about how “anarchism will never work.” Mostly from people that don’t understand anarchism and for some reason believe it has to be implemented as some nation-wide, total replacement of the dysfunctional system we have today. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Most real anarchists largely ignore the happenings in Washington and Wall Street and remain busy constructing functional democratic communities in the shadow of the oligarchy. There’s not any talk of storming the Bastille, overthrowing things and installing a new set of rulers. Most have given up on the empty promises emanating from the Washington-Wall Street complex and decided to construct their own system.

Like these folks:

From The New York Times

September 17, 2010
A Commune Grows in Brooklyn
By JED LIPINSKI
ON a recent drizzly afternoon in Bushwick, Brooklyn, members of the Bushwick Food Cooperative gathered beneath a tent in a ramshackle backyard to claim their share of the weekly harvest. They picked through crates of cilantro and rosemary from a rooftop farm in Long Island City, Queens, and examined pastured eggs from an Amish farm cooperative in Pennsylvania.

Benn Rasmussen, a 29-year-old dancer who lives with nine people in a sprawling loft nearby, was signing people in. Shira Shaham, 30, a member of the collectively run bike shop Band of Bicycles, was keeping track of the price list. Then Ariel de Leon, who is affiliated with the Food Not Bombs anarchist movement, arrived with an extra blue Ikea bag for Ms. Shaham to carry her produce in.

“My friend makes women’s swimsuits out of those,” someone said.

“I use them to plant tomatoes in,” Ms. de Leon replied.

It was a fairly typical scene in Bushwick these days. In fact, such scenes are not atypical across the greater metropolitan area, where a kind of renaissance in collectives is under way. Concepts like sharing and bartering — whether it’s fabric at Etsy Labs in Dumbo or powerboats at SailTime on the Chelsea Piers — are being revived and updated for the Twitter age.

“The groundswell of social technology today is creating unprecedented opportunities to share and collaborate,” said Rachel Bosman, an author of the new book “What’s Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption.” “Farmers’ markets and Facebook have a lot in common. All around us we’re seeing a renewed belief in the importance of community, in both the physical and virtual worlds.”

Despite the lingering hippie connotations, collectives, which might be described as self-managed groups of people with similar interests working toward a common goal, are a thoroughly modern phenomenon. And nowhere in New York is this collective mind-set as embraced as it is in Bushwick. The persistently cheap rents, surplus industrial space and neo-bohemian vibe have drawn artists and creative entrepreneurs priced out of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg for over a decade, and many are now experimenting with collective lifestyles as never before.

“Given the way the real estate market is today, no wonder people here are finding new ways to organize their living space,” said Laura Braslow, 30, a coordinator for the “non-hierarchical” volunteer organization Arts in Bushwick.

Bushwick is host to a staggering variety of collective organizations — including bedbug-ridden “freegan” cooperatives, handball-court movie theaters and activist bicycle collectives that double as bluegrass rock bands. Even the area’s formalized small businesses tend to work collaboratively, pooling resources and sharing employees.

Roberta’s, for example, the locavore pizzeria near the Morgan Avenue L stop, acts as a kind of community headquarters for area residents and local business owners. In a backyard tent, the managers of the Wreck Room bar and the Deth Killers of Bushwick, a fashion company, can be found doing inventory on their laptops.

Chris Parachini and Brandon Hoy, owners of Roberta’s, are also two of the founders of the Brooklyn Grange, a rooftop farm in Long Island City. The farm sells produce to the restaurant and local markets, and recently raised $23,226 through Kickstarter.com.

In Roberta’s backyard, three greenhouses growing peppers and eggplants sit atop two metal shipping containers. These containers house the Heritage Radio Network, an Internet radio station sponsored by Heritage Foods USA, which, in exchange for the space, supplies Roberta’s with pasture-raised pork.

Other urban farms look to Roberta’s for inspiration. Lee Mandell, a wild-haired hydroponicist, started Boswyck Farms with a partner in 2008 to “eventually connect all the farms in Brooklyn.” He put his life savings into the project, and finds interns and volunteers through word-of-mouth . In the meantime, Mr. Mandell has transformed his loft on DeKalb Avenue into a hydroponic laboratory, crammed with grow lights and gurgling trays of bok choy and Pink Beauty radishes.

In addition to food advocates, Bushwick is loaded with artists. Many have formed collectives to combat the isolation of the studio, the disappearance of state arts funding and what they see as the commercialism of the art world. Rather than petition fruitlessly for Chelsea gallery representation, these groups exhibit their work wherever they can — bedrooms, stairwells, street corners.

Regina Rex, whose members think that “artist-run exhibition space” better describes their modus operandi than the term “collective,” held its first opening in June during Bushwick Open Studios — a four-year-old art festival that now features more than 300 shows in over 150 locations. The 12 members, all of whom have day jobs and seven of whom got M.F.A.’s from the University of Illinois at Chicago, split the cost of a white box gallery inside a cavernous warehouse at 17-17 Troutman Street in Ridgewood, Queens, near the Bushwick border. In an e-mail written in the collective “we,” the group said that they decide “everything by consensus or large majority” and have agreed that their own work would not be promoted in the space.

Paul D’Agostino’s gallery Centotto (Italian for 108, his apartment number) functions on a similar premise. In 2008, he hung some friends’ artwork in his shared Moore Street loft for Open Studios. More than 500 people passed through that weekend. “It’s cool to have so many strangers in your living room just because you put some art on the walls,” he said.

Since then, Mr. D’Agostino, who is 33 and teaches Italian and interdisciplinary studies at Brooklyn College, has held a collaborative show every two months. A rotating group of established and emerging artists base their contributions — none of which are for sale — on a reading Mr. D’Agostino assigns. “It gets more dialogue into an exhibit,” he explained.

The collective-minded aren’t just defining how Bushwick eats and exhibits art, however. They’re also influencing the way people live and sleep. The neighborhood has recently drawn notice for several communal living arrangements, including the Cedar House mansion on Bushwick Avenue and the “Bushwick trailer park” inside a former nut-roasting factory on Meserole Street, nearby in East Williamsburg. This bid to create an arts community around a fleet of salvaged, Wi-Fi-accessible campers was nearly thwarted in February, when the Fire Department declared the premises unsafe and issued a vacate order. But it still exists.

Surreal Estate, a collective living space and events venue that encompasses two adjacent buildings at 13 and 15 Thames Street, is one of the largest of its kind in Brooklyn. The three-story building at 15 Thames houses around 35 people — including transients seeking a place to stay for a few months and those who have lived there since its inception in 2008. Residents pay between $250 and $600 a month in rent, depending on room size, plus $50 for utilities.

On a recent Monday afternoon, a few barefoot young people were drifting around the second floor, where a lending library with scores of old National Geographics abuts a kitchen full of bagels, vegetables and other morsels scavenged from Dumpsters across the city. Bedroom doors are stickered and stenciled with uplifting messages: “If money were no object, what would you do with your life?”; “Love is possible.”

“Everyone here is super-creative and shares everything,” said one resident inside her small, shared bedroom. “This has been the best time of my life.” Her arms and legs, however, were freckled with bedbug bites — one of the downsides to communal living. “I sleep up there,” she said, pointing at a lofted mattress encased in clear plastic.

Housemates range from 20-somethings to 40-somethings and hold all sorts of jobs. “Somebody’s a waitress, somebody’s a dominatrix, somebody works for the Parks Department,” said Vanessa Cronan, 28, a former resident. Residents are required to contribute to the household in some way, so Ms. Cronan taught free yoga classes on the roof.

No such requirements exist at 13 Thames, the dilapidated building next door. “There’s no structure here, it’s completely chaotic in the way it operates,” said a black-clad resident named Vladimir Teichberg. As he spoke and chain-smoked, shirtless men with dreadlocks painted over crude graffiti, carefully avoiding an upside-down American flag.

Mr. Teichberg is a founder of the Glass Bead Collective, a group that specializes in viral videos and uses the space as a part-time headquarters. He and about 12 other occupants — all of them male — pay the landlord about half what the residents next door pay, given the space’s run-down condition.

Both 13 and 15 Thames have lately attracted police attention — the latter for a “3D 13: Dimensional Dance Party” (Trance! Hookahs! Tarot card readings!) during which nine arrests were made for assault, disorderly conduct and selling alcohol without a license, among other charges.

Despite playing host to anarchist book fairs and experimental theater performances, Surreal Estate is also a big party destination, which led Ms. Cronan to move out last fall. She now lives happily in a regular Bushwick apartment with four other people. Still, she regrets that she doesn’t know the seven people in the apartment below her.

“We’re not intentionally creating a community,” she said. “We’re just living next to each other.”

The calm and beauty of early morning. Nothing but the sounds of crickets and a few avian early risers. Northern Cardinal, a year round resident, and migrating Ruby-throated hummingbirds, serenading and entertaining us with their chipping and their airborne acrobatics.

On the back of the house, a true vampire, Araneas cavaticus, better known as the Barn spider, dismantles and eats its own web, recycling the silk proteins. Afterward, it retreats to the safety of a dark crevice on the side of house, a coffin of sorts, to await the return of the Waxing Gibbous moon.

The air is cool and pleasant, a welcome reprieve from the unseasonal heat. It’s late September in the Upper Delta, and by now, we should be enjoying more moderate temperatures, not day after day of mid-nineties. Everything is parched and dusty, and the lack of rain will most assuredly have a negative effect on fall colors, since stressed trees drop their leaves quickly. Drier than normal weather in the late summer into early fall accelerates the leaf changing process, causing the leaves to fall prematurely. Likewise, a wet September and October will produce fewer vivid colors and the leaves may also fall earlier due to rain and wind.

“Civilization has provided no peace, no spectacle, no assurance to the human heart which can transcend the simple, ever-changing, matchless beauty and peace of the natural world.”-Harvey Broome

Plans for the day? Not many. Sunday is a day of rest mostly. Allison and I will enjoy a walk on the Wolf River trails, and maybe I’ll work on the book. Yes, the book. I’ve got one in me somewhere, I just have to first conquer a lack of discipline and focus. I know the subject matter, even most of the characters, but putting the first words to paper is the hardest part. The first difficult and necessary step toward freedom from corporate drudgery.

But doesn’t sitting in your garden working on a book on a quiet Sunday morning sound infinitely superior to what awaits on Monday? The morning commute, dealing with bankers, lawyers, constant phone calls, rejections, warnings, hearing news of the failing economy, the failing world, collapsing environments and communities, widespread war and famine? Who really wants to write and read proposals, deal with credit reports, restructure loans, listen to Powerpoint presentations and examine spreadsheets? Deal with self-absorbed, ego-driven louts willing to do anything to advance their own ridiculous ambitions. Or, just miserable people hell bent on sucking you into their vortex of misery and ugliness.

I know I don’t. Most of what we call civilization is a living hell as far as I’m concerned. And as I grow older, I find that I rarely want to venture out of my garden or off the trail. Of course, to get to the trail means you must leave the garden. Oh well. Life isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s far from it.

Surrounded by trees and flowers and the sounds of morning, my mind is quiet. I feel safe, tranquil. I resolve to make my everyday existence as much like this moment as I can.

“When will people become equally sensitive to smoke and hideous surroundings? When will they covet for their communities pure air and a pleasing prospect and a more happy blending of the natural and artificial? When will they think as much of good living as of production? Of serenity as of change and ‘progress’?-Harvey Broome

Kudos to my awesome friend Moab Mike!!

From the National Geographic Adventure Blog:

Best American Adventures: Backpack the Hayduke Trail

Edward Abbey, who spent his formative years working in the parks of southern Utah, used to suggest that every time you see one of those national forest signs that say “Land of Many Uses,” you change the last word to “Abuses.”

A Vietnam vet turned radical conservationist, George Hayduke is the hero in Abbey’s famed novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which chronicles the adventures of ecowarriors sabotaging extractive and exploitive industries in order to save public lands from destruction. Hayduke is a sort of environmental superhero, evading the law while he defends the land he loves—and inspiring hundreds of Abbey’s readers to, in fact, change the words on those signs.

It’s only fitting that an 800-mile (1,287-kilometer) trail that began as a semisecret underground project be named after Abbey’s folk hero. The Hayduke Trail was the brainchild of hiker Joe Mitchell, who wanted to go out on a long, Abbey-esque trek that celebrated the land. Mitchell and fellow hiker Mike Coronella then set the route that spans the Colorado’s Plateau’s must-see list of postcard landscapes, starting in Arches National Park (where Abbey worked), heading through Canyonlands National Park, down into Capitol Reef National Park, across the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, into Bryce Canyon National Park and the Grand Canyon, and finally ending up in Zion National Park.

Many Americans hit these sites in an RV, but the Hayduke way requires an incredible amount of resourcefulness, wriggling through slot canyons, route-finding, careful logistics, and luck—in short the way Abbey wanted Americans to experience their public lands. Completing the entire trail can take up to three months. Go ahead. Abuse yourself and enjoy the land.

Need to Know: Find maps and hiking information at www.hayduketrail.org.

“Friendship is a hard thing to define. To me it is a portion of creation held in common. Our special portion (yours and mine) we call the wilderness-the portion untarnished by act of man. Such is our common bond. To cherish it (even as human fellowship itself)-such is our common goal.
For we need this thing wilderness far more than it needs us. Civilizations (like glaciers) come and go, but the mountain and its forest continue the course of creation’s destiny. And in these we mere humans can take part-by fitting our civilization to the mountain.”-excerpt from a letter written by Benton MacKaye, originator of the Appalachian Trail to Harvey Broome’s (fellow founder of the Wilderness Society) sister, Margaret

Remember John Lennon’s song “Happy Christmas, War is Over.” Of course you do. I sure do.

It was one of his best, and I always thought a lot about the first few lines.

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

I thought about those lines because they always forced me to look at my own life and say “what have I done.” And so, as I turn 48 years old today, I once again ask myself, “what have I done.”

Not enough. Not nearly enough, but there’s time. If life were a football game, I’d probably be early in the third quarter. Or maybe I’ll be really long lived, and in that case, it’s perhaps only half-time. But nothing’s certain other than death and taxes. Yes, and the fact that war wages on and will most likely continue to rage onward as long as Washington and Wall Street have fuel and Chinese money to fund their stupid war games.

As for my record in year 47, I suppose it wasn’t too bad. I was able to continue to fund my children’s education, provide jobs for a few people and even help a friend that needed a roof over his head and three square. I saved a starving dog from certain death, nursed him to health and provided him a home. I provided love and support to people that needed it, as best I could. I loaned money, and I gave away money.

Patting myself on my own back I say “That a boy!”

Whatever. That’s what everyone should be doing. That’s the minimum. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary or what should be out of the ordinary. To date, I’ve still not participated in saving any significant piece of wilderness or even a small patch of Mother Earth. Maybe my money and my letters helped, but I wasn’t on the front lines. I didn’t disable a single piece of machinery! How embarrassing for a so-called Abbeyeista to not have disabled at least one big CAT. I haven’t been arrested at a protest. I didn’t cut down any billboards (takes a while these days since they have massive steel supports), and I’ve yet to publish a single sentence. I suck!

My biggest regret, the thing I feel the worst about is the fact that I haven’t done enough for our suffering planet. Recycling, cycling, gardening, being a voice for the voiceless or owning a Prius strikes me as significantly insufficient. Surely there’s more!

But maybe there’s not. Maybe that’s all most of us can really do. Just change ourselves and live a noble life. We can’t all work for non-profits. We can’t all file lawsuits against Monsanto and BP. And is it really sensible to get arrested or place yourself in danger of arrest? I think that’s a waste of money, and it incapacitates you. I realize that some of that is more about building solidarity than anything else, but we need to work smarter. We shouldn’t give the state an excuse to use violence or give them ammunition to characterize greens, anarchists, promoters of peace and animal rights activists as whacko extremists. That’s what they want. We have to outsmart them, and the first step is refusing to participate in the scam.

Some of us contribute the war chest. Others work in their communities and bioregions. Some are caregivers. Others raise their voices and some louder than others….We all have a role to play, and I don’t think it’s necessary to compare ourselves to others. Just work to be superior to your former self.

Ok, anyway…for my 48th year on Mother Earth I resolve to

-ride my bike more
-give more money to worth causes
-work harder to expose lies uttered by corporate lackeys and political douchebags
-save more money
-drink less (I can’t live up to Ed’s standard)
-run more
-do more sweet things for my wife
-spend more time exploring forests, mountains and meadows and documenting flora and fauna
-being more patient with people I don’t agree with
-promote love and understanding

It seems clear to me that the sense of urgency is more profound today than any time in recent memory. Need confirmation? All one has to do is pay even a cursory amount of attention to what’s going on around them. Or, if you’re more inclined to reach conclusions based on actual data, spend a little time pursuing the data at Earth Policy Institute. The data is sobering. Alarming, even.

Seems clear to me that the earth is in peril, and as the earth goes, so go humans and non-humans. It’s past time to get off our asses.

As Ed would say, “ONWARD!”

Thus, endeth the Sunday morning sermon. We’ll now pass the offering plate.

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.-Edward Abbey

It’s often said sometimes people just can’t see the forest for all the trees.

I suppose that’s especially true in politics, since it’s so clear to a few but lost on so many that our political system in the United States is not only dysfunctional but outdated and essentially brain dead. Anyone that really thinks about things or that has a shred of decency gave up on the Republicans a long time ago. As a friend of mine once said “I don’t see how you can even be a decent human being and be a Republican.” True dat.

But what about the Democrats?

I gave up on them a long time ago, having cast my lot with Nader and Greens many elections back. I caught a lot of shit for it. Tons of shit. I was basically blamed for Gore’s defeat, although as I pointed out then and continue to point out to this day, it’s not my responsibility for any politician to win or to prove themselves electable. It’s their responsibility.

I caught shit a second time around for not supporting Obama. I was happy he won, and happy to see our first sorta-black person in the White House, but beyond that, I really didn’t drink the Cool-Aid. Again, I stuck with Nader, although I had hopes for Kucinich, who although not electable, was more electable than Nader. They were the only two that I believed consistently told the truth about things.

And as we’ve witnessed the Obama debacle unfold, it seems I’m at least somewhat vindicated. The war rages on, he remains committed to non-sustainable growth economics, he capitulated on healthcare and basically delivered nothing but 30 million or so subscribers into the hands of greedy insurance companies, and now we learn he’s carrying on the Bush legacy of defending torture.

He throws us a few bones here and there, and I’m grateful for whatever scraps I can get, but in the end, Obama represents little more than the status quo.

On top of all of this, it also now seems crystal clear that our economic system cannot be sustained. Some of us have known this for years, but anytime we mentioned rational alternatives, we were laughed out of the room or ostracized by people that not only can’t handle the truth, they refuse to even consider it. The truth is, has always been and always will be, that growth capitalism is not sustainable. We live in a casino complex that’s now funneling massive amounts of wealth to the top one percent, while the rest of the country trembles in fear of losing their jobs, their insurance, their homes and perhaps even their lives. Who, beyond that super wealthy class, really feels secure? I know I don’t, and I make a good living.

Communism? State sponsored socialism? Even Castro now admits that doesn’t work.

So what will work?

As far as economics are concerned, we need to take a few simple steps. One, we needn’t scrap capitalism altogether. Let’s just fine tune it. Give workers more equity and voting rights. We can do it without damaging the incentive to innovate and to improve. Let’s support more locally owned family enterprises and cooperatives. And most importantly, develop and economic system that exists within limits. Biological and geophysical limits. Let those principles be the ultimate arbitrator, not the return of shareholder value, because in the end, if you do things properly, the shareholders will be rewarded more stable returns over a longer period. Who really wants the roller-coaster ride we’ve all been on lately?

“Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best among men.”-Edward Abbey

And as for politics, old Ed Abbey had an idea or two. Noam Chomsky and others, as well. Some call it anarchism. Others call it grass roots democracy, but it’s all the same thing. Abbey once said that “anarchism is democracy taken seriously.” Governance by the the people, for the people and of the people and from the grass roots up. Wanna stop the Washington-Wall Street power machine dead in its tracks? Wanna feel more secure and have a safer, more egalitarian society? Consider something different. As all those corporate lackeys like to say “think outside the box.”

Anarchy doesn’t mean “no rules.” It means “no rulers.” Study the real science of anarchism by serious, educated writers. Don’t believe the hysteria and think all anarchists are black clad, brick throwing nutjobs. They’re not even anarchists! They’re little more than hooligans that need a swift kick in the ass.

Or, if you like things they way they are, just keep doing the same old shit, cause you’ll get the same old results.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”– R. Buckminster Fuller

Chomsky has stated the greatest threat to our freedom today is expanding corporate power, and I fully agree. In his opinion, a necessary temporary response to corporate power is to increase the power of the central state until we can ultimately move or evolve to anarchism. I’m not totally comfortable with placing too much power in the hands of the state, even temporarily, but frankly, I’m not sure what other choice we have. At least on a national scale. That may in fact be the only way to get out of this mess.

But until all that happens, we can and should continue to construct and strengthen our local, grass roots democracies. Neighborhood associations, community gardens, systems of barter and trade, etc. Grow a sustainable economic and political system organically at the local level and thereby shifting the balance of power from the few in Washington to the many throughout the country.

I’m told by some that if it wasn’t for the Federal government we wouldn’t have the buffalo, the National Parks or civil rights protections. True enough. But that doesn’t mean that a shift in power back to the people necessarily places all of that in jeopardy. I believe those protections and advances could easily move forward.

Will all of this happen in my lifetime? Probably not. I figure the vast majority will continue onward as they always have until we have a series of truly cataclysmic events. Severe economic depression, expanded war, severe food shortages and mass starvation, increases in suicides, etc. In fact, we’re already seeing it. I really think people are just too lazy to change and too many are too ignorant. They’re addicted to the non-sustainable fossil fuel, growth economy and probably won’t start thinking until the effects hit close to home. Maybe never.

Keep listening to Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, and I can guaran-damn-tee ya you’ll feel the effects.

“Long live democracy. Two cheers for anarchy.”-Edward Abbey

Legendary American folksinger, backcountry traveler, and wilderness advocate James “Walkin’ Jim” Stoltz passed late Friday night, September 3, 2010, at St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena, Montana.

Full story is here.

Every time I visit the Smokies I proclaim it’s my last visit. Too many cars, too many rednecks that never leave their cars and too little solitude. Not to mention the dirty air, an unwanted gift from TVA coal fired plants. But alas, I always return.

It’s as if the park calls me back. Like it has some sort of psychic connection with me and won’t let me go. Which is fine, because it’s a beautiful, wondrous place, filled with perhaps more biological diversity than any other national park. It’s a jewel in our tarnished national crown.

Allison and I made the trip from Memphis for Labor Day Weekend, mostly to see our son Alex, a student at The University of Tennessee. But the Smokies are an easy forty-five minute drive from Knoxville and offer the best hiking options east of the Mississippi. When we come to dirty K-town, we have to see the Smokies.

We lived in East Tennessee for about eight years when the kids were little, and during those nurturing years, we regularly took the kids hiking. We wanted our children to love the natural world and hopefully one day be its defenders, so we spent a lot of time in the park hiking, enjoying picnics or riding bikes around Cades Cove. Looking back, they were perhaps the best years of our lives together.

Alex, then age four, called them either the “Mokey Mounshuns” or the “Pee Pee Mounshuns.” It’s hard to enunciate when you’re missing two front teeth.

After a hearty breakfast at the hotel, Allison and I stop for gas and ice and then hit the road. For me, the ice is nearly as important as the fuel, because it’s un-American to not have a cold beer after a long hike. And it should be a good American beer, preferably a PBR, not some of that hoppy mountain hippy beer like Fat Tire or Sierra Nevada. I’ll admit to formerly drinking expensive beers, even some of those thick English beers that taste more like Fletchers Castoria than beer. But I finally came to my senses and opted for the more affordable, less pretentious, real thing. Ironically, about the same time as millions of hipsters.

When you drink PBR, you’re saying that you’re basically a somewhat sophisticated redneck. Sorta like Edward Abbey, a guy that measured trip distances by beers consumed.

As we start to pull into the park, I’m astonished by all the traffic. Not sure why, however, since the Smokies are the most visited national park, and it is Labor Day weekend. Still, seeing lines of cars, motorcycles and motorhomes piling into the park by the thousands gives me pause. I realize most of the occupants not only won’t go hiking, they’ll barely leave their cars during the whole trip. Except, of course, to visit the outlet malls, museums and theme parks in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, two living, expanding hells on earth.

And of all the motorized thrill seekers, it’s the motorcycle crowd that bothers me the most. Why is it necessary to drive a machine that you can hear in four states? Is there some supposed correlation between the amount of noise that comes out of your tailpipe and the size the size of your penis? I understand the beauty and simplicity of a motorcycle, as well as the danger, but I don’t understand why it has to sound like something blasting off at Cape Canaveral.

The only way to escape is to hit the trail. Go where they won’t or can’t go.

The weather is stunning. An absolutely gorgeous day with clear skies, so we opt for a high elevation hike. When we lived in East Tennessee, clear days on the ridgeline were becoming few and far between, thanks to the poison spewing from TVA facilities and thanks to the voracious human appetite for energy. Fifty years ago, you could see over one hundred miles from the Anakeesta Ridge. Today, there are many days when you can’t see twenty-five miles.

I’m told by the President, however, that clean coal can change all that. Can it? Is there really such a thing as clean coal? I suppose there is since, after all, there’s such a thing as a justified attack on a peaceful sovereign nation. It’s all good for business, as is tourism in the parks.

Edward Abbey nailed it back in the seventies when he wrote all those spot-on essays about industrial tourism. Abbey forced us to peel back the cover and face the ugly reality of the National Park system. Yeah, the National Park Service does a lot of good, and I fully support the good work our Rangers do in the field. But the administrative folks back in Washington are ultimately swayed by powerful Congress Critters that want tourism in their districts and in their states. They want long lines of cars in parks, because all those people are going to buy gasoline, hotel rooms, meals, tickets to theme parks and tons of cheap plastic shit made in China that eventually all ends up in landfills.

“That’s not exhaust you smell, son. That’s money!”

Seeing the long lines makes me think Abbey was also right in advocating that we close the National Parks to cars. I broach this subject on the trail with Allison who’s quick to point out that would eliminate access for elderly and handicapped people. Not so, I respond. We could give them a special area or have handicapped shuttles. And after all, we don’t have paved, handicapped access to the top of Gregory Bald or Mt. Whitney. There are simply some places not everyone can get to. As Ed once said, “it’s hard, but it’s fair.”

Finally reaching the trailhead parking area, I’m once again dumbfounded by the number of cars. But I find solace in the knowledge that few of these people are going to hike on the longer trails. Most will take the easy half-mile paved trail up to Clingman’s Dome, a trip Ed once took, in fact, and a fun little adventure for park newbies.

And sure enough, after walking not even twenty-five yards down the trail, the noise disappears. We’re surrounded by blue skies and towering trees. We’re enveloped by precious quiet broken only by the sound of the wind.

The trail is a short one, only two miles or so one way, mostly level and well graded, except for the first quarter mile or so. The initial section, perhaps the first quarter mile or less, is mostly rock and uneven. We make our way through the rocks, surrounded by Red spruce (Picea rubens) and Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) and what one local we saw on the trail called “bear berry bushes,” although I suspect it’s chokeberry. It’s actually easy to distinguish between the two evergreen species, since the Red spruce lacks the silvery undersides of the Fraser fir or even the Eastern hemlock. The bark of the Red spruce is flaky and its cones hang down from the branches (Fraser fir stand upright on the branches). Its needles are sharp, so if you touch the need and feel a sharp stick, it’s Red spruce. Many of the firs in the park have succumbed to the non-native, sap-sucking balsam wooly adelgid. Still erect, the remains are eerie skeletons beginning to outnumber the healthy trees by a wide margin. They give the landscape a ghostly, otherworldly quality.

Before the trail levels out and enters a hemlock forest, we catch several fine views down into the valley at Fontana. The rays of the southern sun cascade downward and upon us, drenching us in warmth as the light highlights often obscure or hidden aspects of the forest. We notice small spiders at work in the flora, see all the varying shades of greens, reds and browns, multiple species of native pollinators and the sparkle of quartz nestled in the Proterozoic walls of sandstone, dolomite and limestone.

Our destination is Andrews Bald, one of several balds in the Smokies. Balds are large, mostly treeless meadows found in several areas of the park. They date to the early 1800′s, although their exact origin is unknown. Andrews is what is a grassy bald, meaning its flora is dominated by grasses, but you can also find the mountain laurel, rhododendron, blueberry and huckleberry found on heath balds. Andrews and Gregory are now being maintained as balds, more closely resembling their appearance in the days before the park when locals grazed livestock in the high elevations.

As we approach the bald, I find the trail conditions have improved dramatically since my last visit approximately fifteen years ago. Trail crews have erected wooden supports and even bridges in areas formerly heavily eroded. As we walk along, we notice several species of fern, including Intermediate Wood fern (Dryopteris intermedia), Mountain Wood fern (Dryopteris campyloptera) and Appalachian Rock Polypody (Polypodium appalachianum).

Entering the bald, the first thing I notice is how much larger it seems than on my previous visit. The restoration appears to be extensive. When we last visited the bald, there were very few spots where you could get an expansive view into the valley. The mountain laurel and rhododendron had grown to the point where the valley below was largely obscured. Not anymore. The views were expansive and magnificent, although I have to question the logic of “maintaining” the bald since it means man is interfering with the natural course of things.

As I recall, the Park Service “surveyed” visitors to ask their opinion on the bald, and as expected, people opted for the restoration and the “views.” And since that means more visitors, the Park Service complied. What if they’d asked for ski lift?

The meadow is open and pretty, dotted with blueberries and wildflowers including Skunk Goldenrod (Solidago glomerata) and White Wood Aster (Aster divaricatus). It’s among the most inviting spots I’ve ever seen in the park, so we decide to sit and enjoy a snack and soak up some rays.

Although we don’t have the place all to ourselves, it’s large enough that the other eight or so visitors are barely noticed. We nestle ourselves adjacent to a blueberry bush and absorb the magnificent beauty that surrounds us. Nothing but moderate temps, a crystal blue sky and the most beautiful sound in the world, quiet. As I ponder our good fortune, I wonder why more people don’t get out of their cars and explore. Abbey pondered the same thing, and as I recall, concluded he liked it that way since there were fewer humans to contend with on the trails. Perhaps. But the failure to venture beyond one’s vehicle compounds ignorance and ignorance contributes directly to neglect and to apathy about wilderness.

Since Ed’s time, I believe the numbers of hikers and backpackers has probably increased exponentially. In fact, selling “outdoor gear” is a huge business. REI alone does over $1.4 billion in annual sales. Apparently, we can’t venture out onto the trail unless we have the latest Gortex clothing and titanium gizmos made in China. My god, how did we ever make it without Gortex and GPS devices? Not sure, but I sure enjoy my twelve year old Patagonia quick dry top. It’s served me well on trails all over the country.

As we start to hike out, I notice a group of five or six new arrivals. For some reason, they look out of place, and in a second, my instincts are confirmed. They are out of place. They’ve left their cars, but not their devices.

“Hey, I can’t believe I can get a signal up here!”

And as you might expect, this person starts calling someone on his cellphone, at which point I hasten my retreat. Walking back to the parking area, I think to myself what a noble endeavor it would be for someone, some good patriot that loves his or her country, to disable all the cellphone towers within a twenty-five mile radius of the park.

I dream of a day when the roads will be closed, and to get to Andrews Bald, you have to earn it. Not the easy four mile walk we just took. Walk the whole distance from the park entrance and climb 3000 feet to the ridge. Make it a multi-day backpack. Who knows, you might see black bear, hear Barred owls and coyotes at night. You’d have three days or more to relish the solitude of the trail and commune with something other than your car, your cellphone, your laptop or teevee.

Of course you can do this now and simply ignore the road. Why didn’t I? Because I didn’t have to. I took the easy way out and failed miserably to live up to my own wilderness ethic. Well, not exactly. Truth be told, the trip would have been too much for Allison, since she struggles with rheumatoid arthritis. But if I ever come back to the Smokies alone, or visit any other national park on my own, I believe I’ll observe a new self-imposed rule of walking to my destination from the park entrance.

As Ed would say, “It’s hard, but it’s fair.”

I’ve never really been big on conspiracy theories, although when a lot of money is involved, I’m not terribly surprised at what some humans will do. Recently, Alternet posted a story about a vast international attempt to drive more money into the hands of the wealthiest while taking more from the poorest. Nothing surprising there, except the notion of an vast, international conspiracy seems perhaps far fetched.

To me, it just seems like rich people doing what they’ve always done. Squeezing out every last penny of margin, even at the expense of those that can least afford it. But maybe not. Maybe they all got on a big Webex meeting and agreed on a fix.  Maybe there is a massive conspiracy for the transfer of wealth.

But a recent story in Forbes, “Scrap The Minimum Wage,” is perhaps a better illustration of how the rich think and of what’s going on.  The gist of the piece is this. Unemployment is rising because employers can’t afford to pay minimum wage. They’re going overseas, hiring illegals or simply not hiring because $7.25 an hour is too much to pay for many jobs. Which of course is absolute bullshit. I run a company. I know.

If you make $7.25 an hour and work full time, you’ll make about $1100 per month or around $14K per year. Assuming you don’t take vacation, since you probably won’t get a paid vacation. Today, that’s a pretty shabby way to live, since a decent apartment might take $600 of your $1100 per month. Then you have utilities, transportation, insurance and food. You really live on the edge when you make minimum wage. You’re one big illness or an accident away from bankruptcy.

But never let an opportunity go by, right?

When wealthy capitalists look at the current economy and unemployment figures, they see it as an opportunity to make even more through a new scheme. This time the plan is scrapping minimum wage. That way, while they make hundreds of thousands, you’ll struggle even more to keep the lights turned on, and to keep your car from being repossessed.  I’m convinced that if we didn’t have labor laws and minimum wage, many employers would pay as little as they could possibly get away with and basically run sweatshops. This is how a lot of rich people think. They’re always looking for ways to cut costs and expand margins, regardless of the true costs.

They get to go to church and ask for forgiveness. Wash their slimy hands and come out smelling like a rose.

In fairness, however, I do know wealthy people that are extremely generous. They pay well, and they’re concerned about the quality of life of their employees. If it wasn’t for some of these people, I don’t know where I’d be today, but I’ve been extremely lucky. My wife says I wisely surrounded myself with such people. I maintain even a blind squirrel can find a nut.

When you pay someone minimum wage what you’re saying is “If I could pay you less, I would.” And to that, I say you’re a slimy piece of dung.