"When we got back to the parking lot, I took some additional pictures. It seemed to me that something had changed since the day before. If you look at the image on the left, which compares an image taken on September 30 at the top with a comparable image taken on October 1, you will notice the appearance of orange barricades close to the lot’s entrance and exit. These barricades had appeared either while we were hiking or during the night. Moreover, as we drove down the mountain we then noticed that many of the pull offs and trailhead parking lots now had orange cones blocking access, even in cases where there were many cars parked there. We also saw several trucks and workers with more cones, placing them in several additional lots. It is obvious that the Park Service intends to block access to these trailheads, even though it literally costs them nothing to leave them open and by closing them they actually increase the possibility of serious problems for drivers on the road and hikers still in the park. In fact, it is costing them money they don’t have trying to block access. To block access is thus a deliberate, senseless, and mean-spirited act that demonstrates quite clearly the political goals of the Obama administration during this shutdown. The administration has decided it will use its power to do as much harm as possible to the American people as it can, with the hope that this harm will cause the public to rise up and throw the Republicans out for refusing to pass the budget that Obama wanted and demanded. By limiting access to the park, the administration will also cause harm to the thriving businesses just outside the park that depend on the tourism trade. Further proof of this vicious and fascist political strategy by the Obama administration could also be seen in Washington, DC., where the park service put up barricades to try to block access to the World War II memorial, despite the fact that it is an open-air monument that is unmanned by any park service staff. Before the shutdown the memorial cost the park service nothing. After the shutdown it is costing them a lot to try to keep people out. When a large group of veterans, many in wheelchairs, arrived today to visit the memorial, however, they decided to tell the park service what they thought of this policy, and tore the barricades down. More Americans have to follow the lead of these veterans. The time has come for some courageous defiance by everyone. For example, we plan to go hiking one more time while we are here, on Thursday. If the shutdown is still in place, I intend to remove those cones and park my car and go hiking. Since a park ranger has already told me they will not be providing any service in the park, what will they do? They won’t be there to stop us. Nor should I be alone in this. For example, I wonder why the governors of Tennessee and North Carolina are not defiantly announcing that they intend to use the police to remove the cones themselves, to make sure the trailheads along this major road remain open, for both safety and the economic health of their states. What will the National Park Service do, arrest the governors and the police? As I said, they won’t be there. One last point. The New Found Gap parking lot has a epic and large stone platform at one end, built back when the park was first dedicated. It is from the top of this platform that I took the images of the parking area above. Prominently displayed on the wall of this platform is a plaque, with the following words (see image below): For the permanent enjoyment of the people this park was given one half by the peoples and states of North Carolina and Tennessee and by the United States of America and one half in memory of Laura Spelman Rockefeller by the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial founded by her husband John D. Rockefeller. [emphasis in original] “For the permanent enjoyment of the people.” Hollow words indeed. If the National Park Service and the Obama administration tries to deny Americans the right to enjoy these parks, even when there is absolutely no justifiable reason for doing so, they will prove to all that they don’t maintain the parks for the American people, but for the sole benefit and power of the Park Service and the federal government. The only way to give these words their true meaning and stop this grab for power is to make sure the Park Service and the Obama administration fail in they attempt to hijack what belongs to the people. The people have to not only demand access, they have to refuse to obey the attempt to shut them out.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 00:35:00 +0000
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