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I dispute the contention that Property and Environment Research Center falls into the Wise Use category. I see nothing in Ron Arnold's manifesto that fits with PERC's philosophy. Percolator 21:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There should be more information presented about the terrorism associated with the Wise Use movement.
Your writeup on Ron Arnold and the Wise Use Movement omits pre-1988 events, since they were already underway well before then, under the aegis of the Northwestern US Forest Industry, during the debate over the RARE 2 (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) studies which had begun in 1972.(and concluded under Clinton by 2001)
My awareness of Mr Arnold (who claimed to have formerly been in the Sierra Club executive) began in the late 70's when the British Columbia forest industry began circulating reprints from Mr Arnold's anti-environmental writings, around the time BC's very bitter "War in The Woods" began heating up.
Although the Wise Use rationale was not being promoted to the public as a philosophy, as it is being today, its tenets were well-discussed within industry journals and its boardrooms. This was well evidenced in the tenor of the industry's appeals to the public.
The Wise Use Movement then (ca 1980) took the form of the many SHARE groups (Share the Forest, the Woods, etc), in an active coalition between the IWA (the International Woodworkers of America) and BC's Council of Forest Industries (COFI). At that time the IWA was run by Jack Munro, a declared anti-environmentalist who was likely prompted by a fear of withdrawals of cutting rights from BC's TFls (Tree Farm Licences) and job loss as anything else, as Mr Arnold was warning was then happening in the US.
At that time the issues centered around environmentally unsound forest practices, the immediate prescription for which was seen by environmentalists as massive withdrawals from the "working forest" in the large TFL's. The environmentalist reasoning was that by the time forest practices improved, there would be no environmentally stable "working forest" left.
The major focus at the height of this "War in The Woods" was the South Moresby Wilderness Proposal, and the Share Groups mounted massive ad hominum attacks in their various communities against anyone publicly endorsing anti-forest industry sentiment. Though job blackmail was commonly used against Gov't workers and teachers, and business boycotts employed, such as that which saw Colleen McCrory - later to be awarded the Governer-Generals Award and other major recognition - lose her business, I know of no physical injuries inflicted.
I seriously doubt there's one out of a thousand Canadians today who know what Wise Use means.
The article fails to mention that that the Wise Use controversy prompted John A Livinston's book, The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation (1981), which outlined the fatal flaw of Wise Use, which is its inability to deal with self-interest on the part of the individual or his/her society, the solution for which is offered by Arne Naess' Deep Ecology movement.
"In 1993 the Wilderness Society asked a media communications firm, MacWilliams Cosgrove Snider, to study the Wise Use movement." Does the inclusion of this stray sentence in the article make any sense? It should be expanded, such as: What were the results of this study? Or else it probably should be removed. 151.200.57.98 09:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Response To Criticism Unnecessary? I don't recall there being a "Response to Criticism" section on Most Wikis. The format is usually just the principle at the top of the page and then critics at the bottom. The principles should be strongly stated enough to defend the principles at the top and no further rejoinder is needed to criticisms at the bottom; that "Response to Criticism" should be part of the Criticism on opposing Wikis, etc. - Paul Hakel 19:26 7 July 2009
The Disinfopedia takes a one-sided view of everything, even though it's a wiki. Here's an example of the kind of slant they put on things:
From the observation that in politics "facts don't matter", an article Disinfopedia quotes assumes that this means that Arnold himself believes that facts don't matter to to him; then they further conclude this means he'll (in their words) "ignore facts to achieve his goals".
Not to mention they way they try to discredit Arnold by associating him with an unpopular group (the Unification Church).
I think we need additonal sources of information on the Wise Use movement. -- Uncle Ed 15:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
The article would be much more effective if it were writen from a more fair, objective point of view, IMO. As it is some of the writing almost borders on conspiracy theory stuff. Steve Dufour 03:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The best info I've been able to find on line that is from neither wise-use or envionmental groups themselves is from James McCarthy here [1] and here [2] KAM 17:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Environment, Oct, 1995 by Phil Brick [3]
I see now that the article calls wise use an "agenda" rather than a "movement".
Steve Dufour
03:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
The section Further Connections between the Bush Administration and Wise Use seems more anti-envioronmenal then wise use to me. Saying President Bush has connections to wise use doesn't provide much information. Is ownership of a mutal fund with stock in big oil a connection? Could this be moved to it's own page? KAM 17:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
"Further Connections between the Bush Administration and Wise Use" A number of members the Bush Administration who have connections to Wise Use:
IMO, this section doesn't belong in the article even if a legitimate connection were cited for each entry. Besides, none of these entries are sourced, and a similarity of views or policy or lobbying does not constitute a "connection." (Should we have this kind of section in the Nazism article, or a similar list of Democrats in the Communism article?) - Exucmember 18:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
During the Reagan administration, many Wise Use groups had influence in Reagan's kitchen cabinet, including Colorado brewer Joe Coors of Coors and Co. citation needed Coors founded the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), and the Heritage Foundation, two anti-environmental groups endeavoring to reduce restrictions on major polluters such as Coors and Co. Using his influence in the Reagan administation, Coors chose anti-environmentalists like Anne Gorsuch and her husband Robert Burford to administer the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management, repectively. Burford had pledged to destroy the Bureau of Land Management. citation needed Coors also chose MSLF President James Watt as Secretary of the Interior. citation needed "Watt was a proponent of 'dominion theology,' an authoritarian Christian heresy that advocates man's duty to 'subdue' nature" (Crimes 25).
Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition replaced communism with environmentalism as the biggest threat to democracy and Christianity (see The New World Order by the Rev. Pat Robertson, and Crimes Against Nature by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.). Robertson used his Christian Broadcasting Network in coordination with Ralph Reed, an official in the Bush campaign, to foil environmentalists. The CBN made anti-environmentalism as the point issue in talk shows, documentaries, and news hours. In Crimes Against Nature, Kennedy reports that "...Reed gave seminars to corporate public relations executives, coaching them on how to use electronic technologies and grassroots organizing to foil environmentalists" (Crimes 29). Wise Use helped propel Newt Gingrich to the Speaker's seat of the U.S. Congress in 1994, and Gingrich showed his loyalty to Wise Use in what Kennedy calls his "anti-environmental manifesto" - Contract With America. During this time period, Gingrich and Congressman Tom DeLay tried to sneak anti-environmental attachments on bills through Congress. DeLay once admitted to the Wall Street Journal (as quoted in Crimes Against Nature) that "We have lost the debate on the environment," after President Clinton shut down the government in December 1995. DeLay said the Endangered Species Act is the greatest threat to Texas after illegal aliens. DeLay also called the EPA "the Gestapo of government" (Crimes 19). Dick Cheney is also connected to branches of Wise Use. From 1992 until he became Vice-President, Cheney was a "distinguished adviser" to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and was on the board of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest. Ron Arnold, Wise Use leader, is the executive vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Several environmental advisors to president George W. Bush have been associated with the Wise Use movement. These include Terry Anderson and Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
I made some changes, but this article is still a mess and needs a complete overhaul. I think it may have been the best example of a biased article (not including stubs) that I have found on Wikipedia. Personally, I am rather neutral on this issue, as this "Wise use" movement attracts business interests which seek to justify their actions which in many cases should not be completely unregulated by government (and at the fringes, bad behavior), and on the other hand some on the other side go too far, such as extremists in the name of environmentalism who have committed what has been called acts of "ecoterrorism," such as driving spikes into trees which break logger's expensive saws and have resulted in at least one death.
Nevertheless, I am offended by a highly biased article (on either side). Is it possible that the reason no one on the "Wise use" side has radically revised this article is that its blatant bias was an example of their adversaries' unreasonable lack of fairness? - Exucmember 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was being very bold in editing, and there are bound to be some adjustments that should be made. I would encourage you to be more bold in your edits (both mine and, especially, previous editors'); you know more about this topic than I do. In the adjustment I just made, for example, I'm not sure that "wetland protection and the Endangered Species Act" are the most typical kinds of legislation that Wise use would oppose, or whether these were chosen by critics to suit their POV and critique of Wise use. In my view, recent editors have not been nearly bold enough in rewriting this article, which was essentially a propaganda piece against Wise use. - Exucmember 17:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it is important, then, to indicate more prominently in the article that Wise use runs the gamut from relatively centrist to extremist views, encompassing a broad range of people, including those that you mentioned (and including some examples of both "moderate" ideas and behavior, as well as the ideas and behavior of extremists). What is not appropriate is for the anti-"Wise use" people to put a propaganda article that represents only their POV on Wikipedia. We need, rather, an article consisting of facts and fair characterizations that are also well-sourced). - Exucmember 00:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Someone said it before on here, but this IS an article about a movement that defines itself primarily in opposition to the environmental movement, so from someone who has done extensive research on the subject, I think it would be extremely hard and probably disingenious to try to make this article "neutral" by airbrushing the anti-environmentalist sentiment that pervades this movemenet. I do agree however that there are a lot more and better sources on Wise-Use and people's reactions to it then those that were used in this article. Also, people should not be so quick to dismiss industry ties to the movement as "conspiracy theory", in fact they run very deep and have had a profound impact on the movement's effectiveness in shaping government policy on these issues. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.172.211.127 ( talk) 20:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
I think that the environmental movement seeks to conflate anti-environmentalism with wise use. WHAT'S OLD AND WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THE WISE USE MOVEMENT here [6] seems like a good source. It also metions the Myth and Ideology of the Old West, the key to the criticism seciton is good understanding KAM 14:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I propose the following revision. Remove the section,
And replace it with,
He never says that those three points are what the wise use movement is about, he simply states that "the environmental movement challenges the dominant Western worldview and its three assumptions". Calibas 03:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The title of the page says 'Wise use', while the actual URL includes 'Wise Use Movement'. In other sections, the usage of uppercase and lowercase in the 'Wise Use' phrase is highly inconsistent. Valencerian 02:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I took the liberty of removing the tag. I think that more could be added to the criticism section , perhaps the part about Richard White could be expanded. In my view the "wise use is a front group" is not taken seriously by neutral writers. KAM 00:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Including a quote from St. Clair and Cockburn as a response to criticism of the wise use movement is somewhat disingenuous. The link to whatever article that was quoted is dead, but even a brief glimpse at their other articles on the wise use movement indicates that they are by no means defenders of it. If the dead link is to an article similar to others (e.g. here and here), their point is that the wise use movement gains a following because some of its basic claims regarding elitism in the environmental movement are at least partially valid. This, however, is the key to any relatively successful populist appeal, and--as the two authors repeatedly point out--does not change the fact that corporations and politicians have used the wise use movement as a front group. Hence, using the quote from their article as a response to criticism takes the source material out of context, as Cockburn and St. Clair offer a more nuanced criticism that nonetheless reflects the previous points.
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I dispute the contention that Property and Environment Research Center falls into the Wise Use category. I see nothing in Ron Arnold's manifesto that fits with PERC's philosophy. Percolator 21:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There should be more information presented about the terrorism associated with the Wise Use movement.
Your writeup on Ron Arnold and the Wise Use Movement omits pre-1988 events, since they were already underway well before then, under the aegis of the Northwestern US Forest Industry, during the debate over the RARE 2 (Roadless Area Review and Evaluation) studies which had begun in 1972.(and concluded under Clinton by 2001)
My awareness of Mr Arnold (who claimed to have formerly been in the Sierra Club executive) began in the late 70's when the British Columbia forest industry began circulating reprints from Mr Arnold's anti-environmental writings, around the time BC's very bitter "War in The Woods" began heating up.
Although the Wise Use rationale was not being promoted to the public as a philosophy, as it is being today, its tenets were well-discussed within industry journals and its boardrooms. This was well evidenced in the tenor of the industry's appeals to the public.
The Wise Use Movement then (ca 1980) took the form of the many SHARE groups (Share the Forest, the Woods, etc), in an active coalition between the IWA (the International Woodworkers of America) and BC's Council of Forest Industries (COFI). At that time the IWA was run by Jack Munro, a declared anti-environmentalist who was likely prompted by a fear of withdrawals of cutting rights from BC's TFls (Tree Farm Licences) and job loss as anything else, as Mr Arnold was warning was then happening in the US.
At that time the issues centered around environmentally unsound forest practices, the immediate prescription for which was seen by environmentalists as massive withdrawals from the "working forest" in the large TFL's. The environmentalist reasoning was that by the time forest practices improved, there would be no environmentally stable "working forest" left.
The major focus at the height of this "War in The Woods" was the South Moresby Wilderness Proposal, and the Share Groups mounted massive ad hominum attacks in their various communities against anyone publicly endorsing anti-forest industry sentiment. Though job blackmail was commonly used against Gov't workers and teachers, and business boycotts employed, such as that which saw Colleen McCrory - later to be awarded the Governer-Generals Award and other major recognition - lose her business, I know of no physical injuries inflicted.
I seriously doubt there's one out of a thousand Canadians today who know what Wise Use means.
The article fails to mention that that the Wise Use controversy prompted John A Livinston's book, The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation (1981), which outlined the fatal flaw of Wise Use, which is its inability to deal with self-interest on the part of the individual or his/her society, the solution for which is offered by Arne Naess' Deep Ecology movement.
"In 1993 the Wilderness Society asked a media communications firm, MacWilliams Cosgrove Snider, to study the Wise Use movement." Does the inclusion of this stray sentence in the article make any sense? It should be expanded, such as: What were the results of this study? Or else it probably should be removed. 151.200.57.98 09:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Response To Criticism Unnecessary? I don't recall there being a "Response to Criticism" section on Most Wikis. The format is usually just the principle at the top of the page and then critics at the bottom. The principles should be strongly stated enough to defend the principles at the top and no further rejoinder is needed to criticisms at the bottom; that "Response to Criticism" should be part of the Criticism on opposing Wikis, etc. - Paul Hakel 19:26 7 July 2009
The Disinfopedia takes a one-sided view of everything, even though it's a wiki. Here's an example of the kind of slant they put on things:
From the observation that in politics "facts don't matter", an article Disinfopedia quotes assumes that this means that Arnold himself believes that facts don't matter to to him; then they further conclude this means he'll (in their words) "ignore facts to achieve his goals".
Not to mention they way they try to discredit Arnold by associating him with an unpopular group (the Unification Church).
I think we need additonal sources of information on the Wise Use movement. -- Uncle Ed 15:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
The article would be much more effective if it were writen from a more fair, objective point of view, IMO. As it is some of the writing almost borders on conspiracy theory stuff. Steve Dufour 03:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The best info I've been able to find on line that is from neither wise-use or envionmental groups themselves is from James McCarthy here [1] and here [2] KAM 17:04, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Environment, Oct, 1995 by Phil Brick [3]
I see now that the article calls wise use an "agenda" rather than a "movement".
Steve Dufour
03:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
The section Further Connections between the Bush Administration and Wise Use seems more anti-envioronmenal then wise use to me. Saying President Bush has connections to wise use doesn't provide much information. Is ownership of a mutal fund with stock in big oil a connection? Could this be moved to it's own page? KAM 17:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
"Further Connections between the Bush Administration and Wise Use" A number of members the Bush Administration who have connections to Wise Use:
IMO, this section doesn't belong in the article even if a legitimate connection were cited for each entry. Besides, none of these entries are sourced, and a similarity of views or policy or lobbying does not constitute a "connection." (Should we have this kind of section in the Nazism article, or a similar list of Democrats in the Communism article?) - Exucmember 18:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
During the Reagan administration, many Wise Use groups had influence in Reagan's kitchen cabinet, including Colorado brewer Joe Coors of Coors and Co. citation needed Coors founded the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), and the Heritage Foundation, two anti-environmental groups endeavoring to reduce restrictions on major polluters such as Coors and Co. Using his influence in the Reagan administation, Coors chose anti-environmentalists like Anne Gorsuch and her husband Robert Burford to administer the EPA and the Bureau of Land Management, repectively. Burford had pledged to destroy the Bureau of Land Management. citation needed Coors also chose MSLF President James Watt as Secretary of the Interior. citation needed "Watt was a proponent of 'dominion theology,' an authoritarian Christian heresy that advocates man's duty to 'subdue' nature" (Crimes 25).
Pat Robertson and his Christian Coalition replaced communism with environmentalism as the biggest threat to democracy and Christianity (see The New World Order by the Rev. Pat Robertson, and Crimes Against Nature by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.). Robertson used his Christian Broadcasting Network in coordination with Ralph Reed, an official in the Bush campaign, to foil environmentalists. The CBN made anti-environmentalism as the point issue in talk shows, documentaries, and news hours. In Crimes Against Nature, Kennedy reports that "...Reed gave seminars to corporate public relations executives, coaching them on how to use electronic technologies and grassroots organizing to foil environmentalists" (Crimes 29). Wise Use helped propel Newt Gingrich to the Speaker's seat of the U.S. Congress in 1994, and Gingrich showed his loyalty to Wise Use in what Kennedy calls his "anti-environmental manifesto" - Contract With America. During this time period, Gingrich and Congressman Tom DeLay tried to sneak anti-environmental attachments on bills through Congress. DeLay once admitted to the Wall Street Journal (as quoted in Crimes Against Nature) that "We have lost the debate on the environment," after President Clinton shut down the government in December 1995. DeLay said the Endangered Species Act is the greatest threat to Texas after illegal aliens. DeLay also called the EPA "the Gestapo of government" (Crimes 19). Dick Cheney is also connected to branches of Wise Use. From 1992 until he became Vice-President, Cheney was a "distinguished adviser" to the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, and was on the board of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest. Ron Arnold, Wise Use leader, is the executive vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Several environmental advisors to president George W. Bush have been associated with the Wise Use movement. These include Terry Anderson and Interior Secretary Gale Norton.
I made some changes, but this article is still a mess and needs a complete overhaul. I think it may have been the best example of a biased article (not including stubs) that I have found on Wikipedia. Personally, I am rather neutral on this issue, as this "Wise use" movement attracts business interests which seek to justify their actions which in many cases should not be completely unregulated by government (and at the fringes, bad behavior), and on the other hand some on the other side go too far, such as extremists in the name of environmentalism who have committed what has been called acts of "ecoterrorism," such as driving spikes into trees which break logger's expensive saws and have resulted in at least one death.
Nevertheless, I am offended by a highly biased article (on either side). Is it possible that the reason no one on the "Wise use" side has radically revised this article is that its blatant bias was an example of their adversaries' unreasonable lack of fairness? - Exucmember 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I was being very bold in editing, and there are bound to be some adjustments that should be made. I would encourage you to be more bold in your edits (both mine and, especially, previous editors'); you know more about this topic than I do. In the adjustment I just made, for example, I'm not sure that "wetland protection and the Endangered Species Act" are the most typical kinds of legislation that Wise use would oppose, or whether these were chosen by critics to suit their POV and critique of Wise use. In my view, recent editors have not been nearly bold enough in rewriting this article, which was essentially a propaganda piece against Wise use. - Exucmember 17:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps it is important, then, to indicate more prominently in the article that Wise use runs the gamut from relatively centrist to extremist views, encompassing a broad range of people, including those that you mentioned (and including some examples of both "moderate" ideas and behavior, as well as the ideas and behavior of extremists). What is not appropriate is for the anti-"Wise use" people to put a propaganda article that represents only their POV on Wikipedia. We need, rather, an article consisting of facts and fair characterizations that are also well-sourced). - Exucmember 00:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Someone said it before on here, but this IS an article about a movement that defines itself primarily in opposition to the environmental movement, so from someone who has done extensive research on the subject, I think it would be extremely hard and probably disingenious to try to make this article "neutral" by airbrushing the anti-environmentalist sentiment that pervades this movemenet. I do agree however that there are a lot more and better sources on Wise-Use and people's reactions to it then those that were used in this article. Also, people should not be so quick to dismiss industry ties to the movement as "conspiracy theory", in fact they run very deep and have had a profound impact on the movement's effectiveness in shaping government policy on these issues. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.172.211.127 ( talk) 20:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
I think that the environmental movement seeks to conflate anti-environmentalism with wise use. WHAT'S OLD AND WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THE WISE USE MOVEMENT here [6] seems like a good source. It also metions the Myth and Ideology of the Old West, the key to the criticism seciton is good understanding KAM 14:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I propose the following revision. Remove the section,
And replace it with,
He never says that those three points are what the wise use movement is about, he simply states that "the environmental movement challenges the dominant Western worldview and its three assumptions". Calibas 03:37, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
The title of the page says 'Wise use', while the actual URL includes 'Wise Use Movement'. In other sections, the usage of uppercase and lowercase in the 'Wise Use' phrase is highly inconsistent. Valencerian 02:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I took the liberty of removing the tag. I think that more could be added to the criticism section , perhaps the part about Richard White could be expanded. In my view the "wise use is a front group" is not taken seriously by neutral writers. KAM 00:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Including a quote from St. Clair and Cockburn as a response to criticism of the wise use movement is somewhat disingenuous. The link to whatever article that was quoted is dead, but even a brief glimpse at their other articles on the wise use movement indicates that they are by no means defenders of it. If the dead link is to an article similar to others (e.g. here and here), their point is that the wise use movement gains a following because some of its basic claims regarding elitism in the environmental movement are at least partially valid. This, however, is the key to any relatively successful populist appeal, and--as the two authors repeatedly point out--does not change the fact that corporations and politicians have used the wise use movement as a front group. Hence, using the quote from their article as a response to criticism takes the source material out of context, as Cockburn and St. Clair offer a more nuanced criticism that nonetheless reflects the previous points.