RSN: Thomas Frank | Bill Clinton's Crime Bill Destroyed Lives, and There's No Point Denying It, Saudi Arabia Threatens to Sell Off US Assets if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill

Reader Supported News | 16 April 16

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Thomas Frank | Bill Clinton's Crime Bill Destroyed Lives, and There's No Point Denying It 
 
Thomas Frank, Guardian UK 
Frank writes: "I remember being warned by a scholar who has studied mass incarceration for years that it was fruitless to ask Americans to care about the thousands of lives destroyed by the prison system. Today, however, the situation has reversed itself: now people do care about mass incarceration, largely thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement and the intense scrutiny it has focused on police killings." 
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Microsoft Says US Is Abusing Secret Warrants 
Jenna McLaughlin, The Intercept 
McLaughlin writes: "Microsoft is suing the Department of Justice for the right to inform its customers when the government is reading their emails." 
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Iraqi Man Removed From Southwest Flight for Speaking Arabic 
Justin Salhani, ThinkProgress 
Salhani writes: "A UC Berkeley student says he was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this month after speaking Arabic on board. Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a 26-year-old Iraqi refugee, came to the United States in 2002 when his diplomat father was killed." 
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US Corporate Media Needs a Democratic Intervention 
Joe Emersberger, teleSUR 
Emersberger writes: "The hypocrisy and imperial arrogance of a Washington Post editorial calling for 'political intervention' in Venezuela has already received some forceful responses, but it is worth highlighting the editorial's claim that 'as human rights groups have extensively documented, most of that bloodshed, including 43 deaths, was committed by the regime's security forces' during violent protests in 2014." 
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Saudi Arabia Threatens to Sell Off US Assets if Congress Passes 9/11 Bill 
Andrew Buncombe, The Independent 
Buncombe writes: "Officials in Saudi Arabia have reportedly told the Obama administration they will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of American assets if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible for any role in the September 11 attacks." 
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Berta Caceres Supporters Attacked in Peaceful March in Honduras 
teleSUR 
Excerpt: "Repression of Honduran social movements continues over a month after the murder of renowned Indigenous leader Berta Caceres, as participants in an international gathering in memory of her life and struggle have suffered attacks allegedly at the hands of the private Honduran company behind the hydroelectric megaproject she and her community have tirelessly resisted for years." 
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No, National Parks Are Not America's 'Best Idea' 
Alan Spears, High Country News 
Spears writes: "When I was a boy, my family made annual summer pilgrimages to Gettysburg National Military Park, which ignited my lifelong passion for American history. I think it would be fair to say that America's national parks mean a great deal to me. Yet, as an African-American, I will tell you that national parks don't crack the top 10 list of best ideas." 
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Alan Spears fears the national parks' 'best idea' language could alienate diverse communities.

 (photo: Glenn Nelson/TrailPosse)

There’s potential to alienate people who value ideas more pertinent to them than the parks.

railPosse is a series produced in partnership with The Trail Posse focused on the relationship between people of color and Western public lands.

When I was a boy, my family made annual summer pilgrimages to Gettysburg National Military Park, which ignited my lifelong passion for American history. As a high school student, I participated in my first park cleanup at Fort DuPont, a National Park Service site near my parents’ house in Washington, D.C. For the past 15 years, I’ve worked for the National Parks Conservation Association, helping to fulfill our mission to protect and enhance America’s national parks for future generations.

I think it would be fair to say that America’s national parks mean a great deal to me.

But despite the oft-quoted words of writer Wallace Stegner, parks are not America’s “best idea,” and describing them as such may be preventing us from creating and sustaining the diverse constituency our national parks need to survive and thrive in their second century. As an African-American, I will tell you that national parks don’t crack the top 10 list of best ideas. The Emancipation Proclamation; the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution; the Voting Rights Act of 1964, and Civil Rights Act of 1965, respectively; all occupy a higher place than our national parks in the order of best ideas. Gay men and lesbians probably feel the same way about the recent and long overdue Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality. Asian-Pacific Islander-Americans might add the repeal of racist exclusionary laws. For women, it may be the passage of the 19th Amendment.

The “best idea” language has the potential to alienate more people than it attracts; it assumes that we all regard national parks with the same unfettered and unequaled devotion. This is simply not the case. If asked to choose between the Grand Canyon or a landmark decision on Civil Rights that guarantees me equal protection under the law, Brown v. Board of Education wins with me hands down every time. And this isn’t strictly a racial or ethnic thing, either. Are we really prepared to say that national parks rank higher than the Bill of Rights, the G.I. Bill and the space program?

Park enthusiasts moved to hyperbole by the majestic splendor of our National Park System often fail to see the arrogance at the heart of the “best idea” sentiment. It’s the assumption that those who don’t “get” national parks have failed to embrace a universal concept. And that we need to be converted into believers not for the sake of park protection, but to improve lives not yet blessed by a visit to Old Faithful. We see this expressed most perfectly by people who doubt the importance of ensuring parks are relevant to a diverse audience. These people proclaim that in a democracy there’s no harm if black and brown people are staying away from national parks of their own accord.

There is more to our history.

Two large challenges emerge to this reasoning. First, it takes a completely ahistorical approach to the development of the National Park System and our shared legacy as Americans. In 1916, the year the Organic Act was written and the National Park Service established, 55 African-Americans were lynched. Discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities was the law of the land. If you’ve ever wondered why black and brown people haven’t visited national parks in representative numbers, it’s because from the very start of the parks idea we’ve been preoccupied with other concerns.

Second, it ignores that our national parks need a broader base of political support. We need more wins on park funding, resource management and protection, and a stronger defense against harmful legislation that would undermine the health of our national parks. It is therefore critical to create and sustain the most diverse, informed and well-engaged constituency possible to influence our elected leaders to treat national parks with the respect they deserve. The “best idea” notion complicates that outreach by promoting the argument that people need parks more than parks need people.

Fortunately, champions from diverse and underrepresented communities are stepping forward to take their rightful places at the forefront of the environmental, conservation and preservation movements. Those who marched from Selma to Montgomery, and their descendants, now are preserving that hallowed ground. The people who led the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn, and their descendants, are leading the campaign to have that historic site given its rightful place in the National Park System. This is progress.

But please, let’s not attribute the rise of the underrepresented to a newfound devotion to America’s best idea. Rather, I think that our national parks are like most of the other laudable, lofty ideals created by Americans: an ever-evolving concept filled with great promise and in need of constant stewardship. If our job as citizens is to help create a more perfect Union, then it makes sense that we should all have a role in creating a more perfect National Park System. I think people of color and underrepresented groups are ready to take on a larger share of that responsibility, but only if we can have an honest discussion about how and why we enter the national parks movement, and where those magnificent sites fit into that long list of America’s best ideas.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/36353-no-national-parks-are-not-americas-best-idea