For the week of May 14 - 20, 2003

Forest Service
sniffs at spam

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Internet e-mail is the greatest communications tool since the dawn of civilization. But elitists at U.S. Forest Service headquarters consider e-mail the devil’s toy of pesky plebeians.

In a Marie Antoinette let-them-eat-cake attitude, the Forest Service is proposing a rule allowing it to ignore e-mail sent through interest group Web sites.

So, taxpayers who take time, say, to sign onto a mass e-mail message campaign through the Sierra Club or one of its opposites, such as the National Mining Association, would find their e-mails deleted and ignored by the Forest Service during rule-making.

A Forest Service spokesman in Washington, Joe Walsh, sniffs haughtily that "a bunch of e-mails that say the same thing with no specific comments don’t tell us anything."

Well. To Walsh, taxpayers are pointless nuisances, unless they have something original to say. Merely joining in a campaign with the same message that might give voice to hundreds of thousands of ordinary folks is insufficient for aristocrats at the Forest Service.

Bank on this: lobbyists for mining, lumber and ranching will get special red carpet access to Forest Service policymakers when pleading their cases under this administration.

Americans joining together in the same message has done wonders for the U.S. democracy.

Wonder if Mr. Walsh is impressed when he hears the Star Spangled Banner sung in unison by thousands of Americans who don’t add an original word or note?

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.