Monday, December 21, 2009

Copper River Record and WISE defend WISE objectives in KL

Merry Christmas from Camp Redington!

Nordica brought me the local paper because she thought I might want to see what editor Mary Odden and WISE executives Janelle Eklund and Paul Boos had to say regarding the growing controversy related to the Community League recently changing the league's bylaws.

The new Board of Directors is making fast plans to hire a "professional facilitator" to help them "straighten things out." They were challenged by another local (who I do not personally know) regarding some of their new corporate changes. He said some people around here think the Board members benefit financially from their volunteer work.

The Board's response in emails and at the meeting was to lecture him about what good, caring people they really are, and that their new positions are not salaried positions. My response was in an article I posted here last week, Enlightened Rule by Scientists and Experts. I should have added "and Volunteers" to make my point even clearer.

http://www.copperriverrecord.com/

This is a hardcopy newpaper so I can't republish both editorials, and you can't read them at the above link. On page 3 of the December 17 issue editor Mary Odden gives us a driving lesson in a piece called "Who's Driving?" She writes about how perfectly she exists beyond the dialectical divides, and says,
"Consider this idea: What if the middle ground is really the high ground? What if thought is required - instead of having our knees kerked like marionettes?"
Later she expounds on her communitarian values with this: "
To those who don't like the word 'community,' I just want to say: community, community, community, community, community."
What kind of a response does she expect to her chanting? Does saying the same word, over and over, make it more powerful? Did her pen float when she wrote that line?

Then she adds this near the end:
"These are the people who get their feelings of power from dissaproving of and even despising others. In my experience, those are the people who are least likely to show up with a bucket of water when your house is on fire."
What makes that almost hilarious is the only emergency fire I've ever helped put out was back at Sharon and Daniels their first winter in Kenny Lake. The cabin he built for his wife and child had a problem in the stack and one day it caught on fire. Daniel was at Tims and we heard her screaming my name. After some confusion over the phone, Nord wanted me to call Tims, I just grabbed a five gallon bucket of water and ran through the trees to where their place is. My ladder just happened to still be leaning on the roof so Sharon ran up it and I handed her the bucket. We had the fire out by the time Tim and Daniel came running over. There's plenty of witnesses to that event, but I never felt the need to go around telling everyone about it. I'd never use it as an excuse to avoid being responsible for any other things I do in my life.

She admonishes me to hold my fire until February. Wonder why.

Turning the page we are greeted with a large headline called "A Season of Giving Thanks" from Paul Boos and Janele Eklund, the WISE leaders who worship Lucifer. Heh. Boos starts right in with reference to the emails that "flew" in the controversy over the bylaws. He directly referenced my email to the Community League elist and a link to my article with,

"One e-mail even commented that people who volunteer have a Mother Theresa complex, as if that was something bad."

I used the term Mother Theresas in response to their continual littany of all the volunteering they do. My tone was, okay, I get it, you're all practically angels here on earth, now, will you please answer the questions about your financial plans? I used that term because they brag and use their accomplishments and virtuous principles to avoid answering other questions like, "What do you need a new community credit card for?" What do you need to form Seven Standing Committees for? Is the league expanding it's original purpose to include Development?

I still haven't seen one answer to any of those Qs.

Boos and Eklund get around to the whole financial gain issue in the fifth column, after lecturing us about being mean spirited. They list all the things other locals do for each other as if I haven't done any "volunteering" since I moved here. It's too funny. I have been volunteering in this place since my arrival, beginning with helping Tim, later giving a huge discount for kennylake.com, built a Kenny Lake Museum out of my own pocket with no grant funding, and spent the entire fair in 2008 parking cars for the public, for free. The fair organizers never mentioned my contribution in their public thank you, but I didn't write the paper to complain or brag about how hard I worked to make sure everyone had a safe place to park and walk.

Our WISE teachers cleverly insert their program and their own altruistic volunteering with "educate our chuldren to respect where they live and who they live with" as if that is on the same par as volunteering for the Fire Dept. Then they slip us the big lie:
"These people don't volunteer for financial gain or power or for some sinister motive, but out of respect for their community and where they live. We truly believe these people are trying to make our community a better place to live."
I agree I didn't volunteer here for financial gain. I'm actually living proof of what happens when we volunteer to do deep background research for lawsuits and magazines full time. I don't agree they don't have a sinister motive because their websites tell it all very plainly. Why reference my research wthout giving the reader the oportunity to consider the facts for themselves?

The truth is this, I found a lot more than was in my article about them. Financial records show WISE receiving money. Regardless of the altruistic motives of WISE partners, it doesn't change the fact that WISE was included in the 2007 Kenny Lake Community Plan. WISE was given the greenlight in the Matrix by the 11 people who finalized the Plan. WISE funds improve private property. WISE funds are used to implement education of dubious intent and origins that any sensible citizen would agree requires further investigation and perhaps vigorous public debate. Public funds are beng used to teach us a new religion, a religion we know very little about. Besides the constitutional restriction against establishing a state sponsored religion, there is also the fact that their "religion" is the direct opposite of what most people claim to worship around here. If I live in a "Christian community," as all the local insist I do, then why does my community vision for the future include my mandatory global citizenship training in WISE's anti-Christian religion? How do the people who claim to be Christians justify their participation in this Luciferian vision? I don't belong to either "church" on either side of this dialectic, and US law says I don't have to either. What new law circumvents the US constitution in this way? The international law of Community Sustainable Development?

WISE writes:
"We don't see any evidence of the trumped up plots by unknown subversive groups that someone says they believe are trying to control our lives. We see caring and giving people that are friends and neighbors here. If that gives us Mother Theresa complexes, we wear the title proudly."
They don't see any evidence? Well neither does the person reading the paper. My article is no where to be found in this public rebuttal. I exposed their theosophy and identified their belief in bringing humanity into the Light. I challenged their right to expand the tiny purpose and role of the community league to include Economic Development. I have verified many of the programs CED introduces to the whole community. They don't even mention me by name nor do they provide a link to the article I wrote in which I provided ample, well researched, direct source evidence. They certainly never mention that the league board members are all on the receiving end of either govt paychecks or government grant funding. This simple fact places all their internal records open for public scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act 1974.

Kenny Lake residents who want to see all the financial records of the members of the board and private businesses operating as NGOs have only to pen a brief request for perusal of documents, naming the exact documents they want to see, by name. Recipents have five days to respond.

I wrote Mary Odden a few times over the years, hoping against hope that the paper here hadn't gone into the Light yet. I wanted her to print the plans and tell the locals all the meetings and major changes happening at those meetings. Big changes are happening all across the Basin, and in a free society where the people are the government and government employees can be fired, BIG CHANGES would also be BREAKING NEWS. Especially changes to the system created by people who assume leadership roles over everyone else in the community, really caring and thoughtful people who were never elected so therefore also cannot ever be fired.

I completly disagree with Mary that the "middle is the higher ground," and my thesis details my argument against that entire philosophy. But I do agree that "thought is required - instead of having our knees kerked like marionettes?" Thought IS required, that's why all these WISE people can do is tug at our emotional heartstrings and hope we believe so much in them we' won't THINK about the facts of their entire operation. And one thing I know for sure, it's not me doing the jerking.

The league is not a government entity... nobody seems to know what it is, exactly. But only members can vote, and that means anyone who's not a member cannot vote on anything the league does. This is not the American system, no matter how much they want us to believe it is. I refuse to join their league and revoke any membership sign in sheet I ever signed, if that is how I "joined." The only authentic government representative I have out here is my State Representative. Time to find that person, I don't even know who it is.

Is it also time to start our own biased one sided community newsletter? Remember the good old days when there was more than one newspaper and each one had it's own editorial slant?

6 comments:

Angry Cheese said...

Real Honest to Goodness Newsprint Newspaper
“Don’t Shoot The Messenger.”

I like their motto! Real, honest, goodness? And they're on the defensive because they're annoying some people.

Stop Common Purpose said...

Hi Niki

Have a nice Christmas.

All the best.

John

overtheedge said...

Nawty, nawty. I'm not sure if it is the blog or my vivid imagination that dredged up a scene from John Carpenter's "Vampires." You know the scene; drag the vampires out into the light and they erupt into flames. (Psst, wanna good deal on barbecue sauce?)

I have learned the hard way that those who trot out a litany of affiliations and their volunteerism do so only for their ego and advancement. "See everyone, we are the most qualified!"

I read both the "Who's Driving" and the "Letter to the Community." Thank you for pointing out to me that 40+ years of bylaws were flawed, marginalizing all the volunteers that gave so much over the years and failed to "toot their own horn." You taught me that we are just ignorant rustics.

The roughly 700 word letter didn't answer any questions concerning the controversy. I quickly noted the "... make our community a better place to live." Who decides better and on what authority? What about those unenlightened souls that moved here because they liked it the way it was? The "out of respect for their community" blurb? I detect little respect.

Is exclusion of the majority better? Experience taught me suspicion first, then questions that demand answers. Failure to answer the questions pushes me to assume the worse. Was change a neccessity? What were the failures solely attributed to the bylaws? Why trust any group that rapidly alters the bylaws?

Answers, clear logical answers are all I need. Did the new board assume that failure to participate in the meetings was proof of acceptance of board actions? Might NOT showing up for meetings be based upon trust derived from 40+ years of experience with almost all the previous board's commitment to the bylaws? Does routine and mundane business require the participation by the majority?

The "Copper River Record" is not qualified to say anything about Kenny Lake matters. On both sides of quicksand exists firm ground. Its the middle-ground that is dangerous. It is most presumptious for the editor to state that local environmental groups "tend to support wildlife management and hunting," trapping or anything else. They have an agenda. The premise that the people are anti-mining in the Tangle Lakes area is false. Some are and many aren't.

There is nothing wrong with community. Individualism is the foundation for a thriving community. Community group-think (by a select elite) is the death of a community. Diversity is strength. The strong have no need or desire for surrogate mommy organizations.

In Germany there is a derisive term for groups of juvenile delinquents,"halb starken" which translates to half strong. It seems appropriate to use the term for all groups that attempt to manipulate the people into conformance with the group-think. Only as a group do the members believe they have strength. Fact; a group is only as strong as its weakest member. Stitching together 10 or 10,000 members doesn't increase the group's strength, but rather its weakness. Good ideas stand on their own merits. Hmm, a t-shirt. "Spank the halb starken".

"... being kind is better than being right, right?" Wrong! This is why I tightened my circle of friends. We don't always agree with each other, but our debates are friendly, informative and we gain a better understanding of the arguments.

BTW, it is scientifically impossible to eat enough at Thankgiving (turkey) to get enough tryptophan to have a measurable effect. How much fiction has the "Record" printed? 20 some years ago, what is now the editorial staff fought creation of local government. How cheaply you were bought.

Kolnidre said...

This is a prime example of Communitarianism at work at the local level. Best of luck slaying the dragon.

And given the equipment you brought to that fire, now we can add "one-lady ladder company" to Niki's list of titles!

Niki Raapana said...

Thanks everyone, very thoughtful and fun input.

Niki Raapana said...

To the BLM employees coming to this page from Aurora, Colorado,

Please feel free to add your comments and opinion of my position here, official or not. If I am wrong in any of my assumptions, other than the ones I have substantiated, I'd be happy to post it. We all gain from hearing all sides to the story.