Citizen's Advisory Commitees - Real or UN-NGO driven?

"Communitarians sometimes sound like conservatives of both camps because they want to shore up the social and psychological foundations of virtue but also to keep the state in its place. Solving this dilemma calls for a new approach, and this is where communitarians stand apart: they reconcile the social conservative's quest for shared virtues and the laissez-faire conservative's devotion to limited government by relying on the community—not the state or the individual—as the first and foremost protector of the social order." Amitai Etzioni, Community, Yes. But Whose?

Just got an email from Kristin Smith with an update on the Copper River Stories Mapping groups progress. They set up a google group for comments, but you have to join it in order to comment. Kristin is the Director of the Copper River Watershed Project, closely affiliated with major NGO player EcoTrust (although that's not prominently displayed on CRWP's website). No suprise to learn Janelle Eklund, Director of W.I.S.E. is the former president of CRWP. It's always the same people in all these new citzen groups; it's similar to a very small, intermarried coven.

So why do I care about them and what they do? Well, they claim to represent all of us. They claim they provide a forum for our local interests in the region. Yet not one person I know out here is part of this group... not one. And when I showed up at one community meeting and expressed my verifiable concerns for their innovative approaches, I was chastized for being a selfish person in the Copper River Record, in two dfferent editorials published last December. Janelle Eklund and her WISE bubba were given five columns in the local paper to respond to my allegations; my actual complaints were never publically printed anywhere except on this blog.

Mission

The Copper River Watershed Project provides residents with a forum to consider and implement innovative approaches for achieving balance between a diverse economy and healthy ecosystems while maintaining our quality of life and our cultural heritage. {Ed note: Notice how the balance is no longer between rights and responsiblilities, they don't even have to mention individual liberty anymore.}

The communities we serve:

* Chisana
* Chistochina
* Chitina
* Copper Center
* Copperville
* Cordova
* Gakona
* Glennallen
* Gulkana
* Kennicott
* Kenny Lake (Editor's note: where we live)
* McCarthy
* Mendeltna
* Mentasta Lake
* Nabesna
* Nelchina
* Paxson
* Slana
* Tazlina
* Tonsina Upper
* Tonsina Lower
* Tiekel
* Tolsona

Here's their latest attempt to further represent my interests. I contacted my ex-husband about this about a year ago when he was still working for Alyeska and asked him if the company was aware of the expansion of powers these citizen groups assume. He barely responded. :)

Groups seek citizen oversight of trans-Alaska pipeline

CITIZENS: Advocates fear spill in salmon-rich copper river tributaries.

By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
ebluemink@adn.com

Published: January 25th, 2010

Environmentalists, fishermen and others in the Copper River region are spearheading a new effort to boost citizen monitoring of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.
http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/1108573.html

Whose idea was it to start empowering citizen groups? Amitai Etzioni's? http://www.exampleessays.com/viewpaper/104.html

Will it become our responsibility as all volunteer citizens to serve on these committees? Or was the program designed to make it look like the people who do serve are the most moral among us? The Essential Commuitarian Reader

"To quote from "The Responsive Communitarian Platform," a manifesto that I helped to draft, we must recognize "that the preservation of individual liberty depends on the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect; where we acquire a lively sense of our personal and civic responsibilities, along with an appreciation of our own rights and the rights of others." Communitarians aim, in short, to strike a balance between individualism and social duty," Amitai Etzioni, Community, Yes. But Whose?

I still say we kick the bums out.

No longer will the country be ruled by the huge and unwieldy councils (known as soviets) that the Bolsheviks packed with milkmaids and factory workers and turned into handy rubber stamps for their party machinations--or which more recently, as democracy took hold, turned into the last bastions of the Communist elite.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-16/news/mn-46405_1_council-members

Edward Kennedy's Serve America Act signed by Obama

Here's the perfect example of a Communitarian Program
that continues to grow regardless of who's president.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/21/A-Call-to-Service/

Some highlights from the Act:
http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/newsroom/releases_detail.asp?tbl_pr_id=1283

Enables millions of working Americans to serve by establishing a nationwide Call to Service Campaign and a September 11 national day of service, and investing in the nonprofit sector’s capacity to recruit and manage volunteers.

Creates a Social Innovation Fund to expand proven initiatives and provide seed funding for experimental initiatives, leveraging Federal dollars to identify and grow ideas that are addressing our most intractable community problems. (boldface added)

Not that I'd want to feed the fires of dissent, but didn't DHS recently identify Americans as our most intractable community problem? They're going to use 9/11 to trick or shame us into participating in a National Service Day. Now what kind of person will refuse to help on that
particular day? Imagine the insults applicable to such blatant selfishness, why it's practically criminal irresponsibility to refuse to serve our great nation and honor our lost dead. We need everyone to pull together, become greater than self and serve America. Everyone, no matter how old can find something to do, and every day the government is getting more organized in ways to help everyone find something to do. No one should be allowed to lazily shirk their share of the nation's burden. Our guru Etzioni says our unfettered Rights must be balanced with responsibilities if we want to grow into a moral society, and service work is a requirement of communitarian citizenship. Obama said no hands will remain idle, and he meant it.