by Jim Britell

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Summary: This is part one of a "Devil's Dictionary" for grassroots environmentalists containing some uncommon definitions for common words and phrases, and also some laws, constants and rules-of-thumb discovered over the years. This part, one of three, covers the areas of Public Administration and Watershed Councils & Partnerships. Ten other subject areas such as science, timber, and economics will be covered later.

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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

1st. Law of Property:

Land, once stolen fair and square, cannot be stolen back.

1st. Law of Public Land:

The tough guys always get the ground.

Acceptance & Acceptability:

When people say that local people will not support what they do not understand, what they mean is that people will not accept what they do understand if accepting it costs them money or proves their whole life has been a tragic mistake. (see Willful Ignorance)

Accountability:

Generally advocated after it is too late to actually achieve it.

Balance:

The process of making tradeoffs between tepidly enforcing environmental laws and ignoring them altogether. When the Grand Canyon Dam was proposed, every elected and civic official within 100 miles of the proposed dam agreed the "balanced approach" was to build it. Derived not from the Latin "bilanz" - to weigh, but rather from the Greek "balanoc" - to insert a suppository in the rectum to ease irritation, as in, "Please bend over so the doctor can insert a "balanoc" into your equation."

County:

American political designation originally developed along with the township and range system to facilitate real estate speculation.

Environmental Enforcement - Basic Rule of:

From St. Augustine, "Give me chastity and continency - but not yet!"

Environmental Enforcement - Circular Argument of:

1. Environmental laws are essential to sustain the web of life upon which we all depend. 2. Alas, if we ever seriously tried to enforce these laws, the subsequent public outcry would cause their repeal. 3. Therefore, we must never seriously enforce them. 4. Nevertheless, go back to #1.)

Equation:

"We must put people back into the equation!" Mythical mathematical concept generally used to advocate injecting local job impacts into Endangered Species listings for the same reason the law's framers specifically excluded them in the first place. To whit, if we had to consider whether it was worth eliminating a man's job to protect some poor creature, nothing non-human could ever be protected from anything, anytime, anywhere.

Gridlock:

Originally referred to third-world traffic congestion created by pervasive non-enforcement of traffic laws. Today sometimes used to refer to a legal impasse which prevents clearcutting in many forests. Gridlock is usually unmistakable evidence that activists have been successful in thwarting the devious plans of large corporations. So Gridlock is a badge of honor and a measure of effectiveness.

MacCollism:

A type of soothing, pre-authorized speech. At the Clinton Forest Summit, the distinguished historian Kimbark MacColl was asked to review the history of the timber industry in the West. Just before he spoke, MacColl was ordered to delete from his speech, key phrases like, "Timber cutters came to despoil ...", "...absentee timber owners simply treated the region as a colony to be exploited." This allowed President Clinton to speak immediately after MacColl and say of the timber industry, "I've been impressed with their love of the land."

Property Rights - Basic rule of:

If a property owner ever had the right to urinate on a piece of property, he has a perpetual right to site a toxic outfall on that same property. Asserting rights over one's private property is All-American: asserting public interest over public property is un-American.

Reaching Out:

Oft asserted bromide that enlightened public policy requires we accommodate those adversely impacted by environmental laws - to the point of selective non-enforcement of those laws. Had President Eisenhower "reached out" to the citizens of Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1950's, he might have dispatched community facilitators instead of armed troops, and probably the schools in the South would still be segregated. (see Partnering and Win-Win)

Observer:

According to conservatives, the only proper relationship of a citizen to local extractive industry is as an observer.

Scoping:

The process by which land management agencies solicit public input on their proposed plans. In practice, Scoping is often scheduled too early to be seriously considered or too late to make any meaningful difference.

Willful Ignorance:

A reflexive and instinctive reaction by "higher monitoring authorities" to scientific data that proves their past practices created environmental problems. Succinctly captured by Horace who said, "To all that which thou provest me thus, I refuse to give credence, and hate."

Win-Win (From the old English word "winnan" - to fight):

A negotiating strategy urged upon environmentalists by their opponents, who seldom practice it themselves, to ensure activists "lose-lose" and are grateful for it.

Utopian Localism:

A pervasive myth that rural officials know best about what "really works" on the local level. Realistically, if we ever ceased Federal enforcement of environmental laws, our public resources would be extracted or privatized in short order with local officials as cheerleaders because the environmental values of most local officials run a continuum from indifference to outright hostility.

WATERSHED COUNCILS AND PARTNERSHIPS

1st. Law of Economic Development:

Rural economic development always involves extending free water and sewer lines to a partners' previously undevelopable land. (see Utopian Plumbing "Pipes for Partners" )

1st. Law of Local Knowledge:

"Locals know best" because by living close to environmental problems they obtain the unique insight that the local area's clean water, shrimp, old growth trees, turtles, elephants or whatever is without limit and therefore really can never be used up.

1st. Law of Not Ramming Things Down People's Throats:

Distant, imperial bureaucracies should respect the customs and culture of rural folks. Basically this is a creative reworking of John Calhoun's (c. 1850 - South Carolina) Theory of Nullification which directly led to the Civil War. If communities engage in practices destructive to the local environment long enough they become "grand fathered in" to do so into perpetuity.

Activism - Gresham's Law of:

Gresham observed that when you introduce debased coins they always drive out good coinage. For activists, his law predicts that if you introduce "consensus based" environmental activism into a community, it will always drive out the existing "advocacy based" environmental activism. As the former becomes established, the latter is extinguished.

Advocacy - Rule of:

Self-imposed problem apparently unique to the science of Biology, which discourages as unethical the advocacy of any research that suggests people might alter their behavior to help other species survive. If medicine adopted the Rule of Advocacy, physicians at accidents might be constrained to counting dead people.

Appropriate Agenda Items:

"Non-controversial" issues acceptable for a Watershed Council's consideration, i.e. "To coordinate Federal and State funded resources to lobby Federal scientists and agencies not to list species on the verge of extinction where the law and science clearly compels it." Conversely, for a Watershed Council to discuss the possibility of asking a timber company to defer clear cutting a sheer slope in a critical fish bearing watershed would probably be considered highly inappropriate. (see Blocking)

Blocking:

The basic right of any member of a consensus-based Watershed Council to forbid placing on the agenda any of the matters which led to the creation of the Council in the first place. Ordinarily invoked for controversial or divisive issues which might establish that some council member, relative or boss ought to be indicted as an ecological war criminal.

Consensus Decision Making:

Generally promoted by the strong and verbally skillful to create an appearance of democratic process while oppressing the weak. [Note: generally OK for families, tribes or religious orders with endless time and shared values.]

Consensus Decision Making - History of, England:

Since the first meetings of the English Shires "under the spreading oaks" in 500 A.D. said by all parliamentarians to be the poorest deliberative procedure because 1. Intimidation is inevitable. 2. Leaders can easily suppress the views of minorities. 3. Conflicts of interest cannot be challenged and thus will be concealed. 4. Invariably motions are passed which conflict with higher authority.

Consensus Decision Making - History of, Greece:

Decision-making procedure in use prior to 136-109 B.C. Abandoned due to widespread intimidation and coercion. Replaced by principles of voting, ballots, representation and parliamentary procedure.

Cross Purposes:

As in "State and Federal agencies too often work at cross purposes." This comment usually indicates there is some poor fool over at Fish and Wildlife who won't fudge the data and ignore violations and so is considered "working at cross purposes" with the other agencies that do so.

Local Involvement:

A call for people to be "creatively empowered" to more fully participate in matters that directly affect them, especially those concerning the use of public property. Taken to its logical conclusion, communities adjacent to the Statue of Liberty could decide to melt it down to create good paying jobs for local scrap metal yards.

Neo-liberalism:

The six key premises of modern public decision-making. 1. All problems can be negotiated by people of good will. 2. Social conflicts are imaginary constructs. 3. Examining systemic malfeasance is unprofitable and inordinately time-consuming because no problem's root source is ever corruption. 4. Those with the most financial conflict with any issue should be deeply involved with the administration of any law regarding it. 5. Problems always arise from "mistakes." 6. "Bad actors" never have names or faces because guilt is everywhere and nowhere.

Nudnik (Nudzh, Nudge):

A Yiddish word meaning one who continually pesters and annoys others. When effective environmental activists begin to actively participate in "roundtables", partnerships, local economic development schemes and other "win-win" processes, over time they are gradually and inevitably reduced to Nudniks.

Oregon Plan:

Creative "partnering" between State and Federal agencies and local landowners to create a complex fig-leaf to cover the fact that the State lacks the will to enforce the Endangered Species Laws. If one wishes to establish nationwide restoration schemes based on the principle that "Crooks Know Best", it is extremely helpful to get a liberal Western Democratic Governor to pilot one for you.

Partnering:

Innovative method used to establish compromising and conflict-of-interest-prone relationships between law enforcers and violators. A creative public policy tool generally used to slip serious environmental enforcement ahead in time hopefully into the indefinite future.

Reconciliation - Saul Alinsky's Opinion of:

"Reconciliation means just one thing: when one side gets power, the other side gets reconciled to it."

Roundtable:

Unique administrative forums whose purpose is to convince local activists they have a de facto authority to give away public assets or suspend environmental laws. If policemen were "roundtabled", they might be persuaded that since they routinely issue tickets for speeding violations, they also have the power to exempt some of their neighbors from motor vehicle laws.

Stakeholder (Steakholder):

This emerging theory of public administration holds that if you lease government land, you obtain proprietary relationships over it. However this is strictly a one-way relationship. A rancher might loudly assert a "Stakeholder" relationship to public land he leases to graze cattle, but if a tenant in a house on the ranchers land claimed the minutest "Stakeholder" relationship to the ranchers rental property, the rancher would probably shoot him.

Talk and Log Group:

Formal ongoing consultative process that meets while some trees are being logged, to assess the best ways to permanently protect them. Generally disbands after the trees become logs.

Timber Dependent Communities:

A local community so complicit with the benefits of logging that reduced logging levels cannot be considered, imagined or discussed.

Utopian Plumbing:

Since the "outputs" of local economic development partnerships are always underground pipes of 6" or larger diameter to service the "partner's" land, they are best viewed as Utopian Plumbing Schemes or "Pipes for Partners." (see 1st. Law of Economic Development)

Watershed Council:

A novel political construct which allows a local community to substitute children's innocuous high school science experiments for the enforcement of Federal Environmental Laws. Sometimes used to expedite placing law enforcement authorities and resources into the hands of environmental criminals. Also used to camouflage public agencies' and officials' lobbying with public funds in contravention of statutes forbidding such practices. (see Oregon Plan)

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