7 ms·

US Forest Service and National Park Service to fire thousands of workers

123 points by rntn 2y ago

jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Parks being unable to handle normal crowds sucks. Out of control fire seasons due to poorly managed vastly understaffed land is a catastrophe. What a catastrophic self own, America.
- somerandomqaguy 2y ago
  It's unfortunately predictable. IIRC Trump has been consistent about wanting to enable more resource extraction from of the public lands and did so under his last term. I assume he's going to do so again this term, it's mostly a question of when and how much.
- kylehotchkiss 2y ago
  The parks might have to close with this level of cuts, right?
- gorbachev 2y ago
  The next phase on this is to use prisoners, including immigrants waiting for deportation, and unemployed people as emergency workers. They'll make a deal with the private prisons to pay the owners for supplying workforce when needed. Unemployment benefits will be tied to a commitment to "volunteer" for emergencies.
- jsbisviewtiful 2y ago
  Many of us adults in the room saw this coming and tried to stop it. Unfortunately those who didn’t want the “self own” were outnumbered by the truly stupid.
nine_zeros 2y ago
When everything is secondary to billionaires right to exploit the country for their own greed.
- sour-taste 2y ago
  Sure seems like some companies will enjoy encroaching on public land when there are no rangers to enforce regulations.
mlhamel 2y ago
[flagged]
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  [flagged]
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
- theli0nheart 2y ago
  The American people voted for this.
  - vkou 2y ago
    A significant subset of the American people voted for this. This is their gift to the world. A subset that is almost as large was appalled by this.
    - roamerz 2y ago
      It’s crazy how divided we are on the issues. In the last 4 years the needle went so far left, way past what even traditional Democrats wanted. Now it’s heading to the right faster than a Falcon 9 rocket. The people in the center are probably just frustrated. The far left are visibly enraged and the far right are celebrating at every EO. Crazy times.
      - majormajor 2y ago
        > In the last 4 years the needle went so far left, way past what even traditional Democrats wanted. Not in many useful ways by global standards of "left." There was a certain amount of public investment in infrastructure, but beyond that... Better public healthcare? Getting prescription prices under control? The use of left-leaning methods to address housing prices (rent control, say)? The FTC went after some mega-corps, at least, but without much hope of success because the legislature didn't do anything new in the M&A or antitrust space.
cma 2y ago
Nonmilitary federal employee payroll only makes up ~5% of the budget. This isn't about money.
- sour-taste 2y ago
  Of course not it's a gutting of the federal government to prevent it from regulation or enforcement of anything that would limit the power of billionaires and companies.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - atoav 2y ago
    The question is what is there to do now, especially for those living in the US. My opinion is that probably strong and organized civil resistance is probably the only good venue now. Be it churches, clubs, unions or whatever. But not individuals in their homes.
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      Go within yourself, connect with our Creator. Beg It to make you a servant of love. You have good ideas. Bolster them with the power of love, my friend. It's our entire purpose, and love requires fighting injustice and cruelty. As to what to do? Connect with the Source and let It guide you. "There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams
      - computerthings 2y ago
        > "There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams This reminds me of one of my favorite things: > Now I am enjoying the last rays of the sun again, marveling at the incredible beauty of everything that has not been created by man. The red dahlias at the white garden gate, the tall serious fir trees and the trembling golden birches with their now shining trunks in front of all the green and rust-colored foliage, the golden sun that enhances the luminous colorfulness of every single thing instead of, like the glowing summer sun, smothering everything that still wants to move next to it. Everything is so astonishingly beautiful that I do not yet know what kind of feeling my speechless heart should develop for it, for it is not yet mature enough for pure joy; it is amazed and content with delighted astonishment. > Isn't it puzzling enough, and if you don't know the reason for it, almost frightening, that everything is so beautiful? Despite the terrible things that happen. Something great and unknown has intruded into my sheer joy in everything beautiful, namely a sense of its Creator, whom the innocent created creatures praise with their beauty. > Therefore, only man can actually be ugly because he has the free will to separate himself from this song of praise. And now one could often think that he is capable of roaring over this song with the thunder of cannons and cursing and blasphemy. But I realized last spring that he can't, and I will try to side with the victors. -- Sophie Scholl in a letter to her friend Lisa Remppis, October 1942 Of course just boiling it down to "love" is prone to misunderstandings, and bringing up "God" is like whipping out a hand grenade on HN. People with different perspectives read these words differently, and of course we get triggered by the religious fascists it makes us think of; but what can you do. Yet also: > But I have learned that a hard spirit without a soft heart heart must be just as unfruitful as a soft heart without a hard spirit. I believe the sentence comes from Maritain: "Il faut avoir l’esprit dur et le coeur tendre". A word that is not experienced by the soul is a dead word, and a feeling that is not the womb of a thought is in vain. -- Sophie Scholl, January 1942
darknavi 2y ago
The plays perfectly into the conservative dream to sell off tons of public lands to the private sector.
- ty6853 2y ago
  Which coincidentally is what most Americans can trace their deed back to, save a small fraction that was privately chartered by order of the king from the get go.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    What is the relevance of this?
  - TeaBrain 2y ago
    As if most Americans were still in possession of their original Homestead Act lands.
    - ty6853 2y ago
      Someone (read most people west of the Mississippi at the very least) is in possession of homesteaded or sold land and without that we'd be in an even more serious housing crises. There is an element of hypocrisy. We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I had to build on truly terrible desert shithole land due to insane land prices (and even burnt out trailers were 150k+ so building a shack on vacant land was my only option), much worse than much of public land, I'd prefer others not have to suffer that.
      - photonthug 2y ago
        > We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I do sympathize, but this is just so incredibly short-sighted. And allowing politicians to enrich themselves (and their already rich developer/landlord buddies who caused the housing crisis) by selling us back what we already own is no fix at all. We really shouldn't set the precedent of letting politicians buy votes from us by temporarily alleviating the problems that they themselves have caused. The east coast is already a concrete nightmare of conurbation and paved suburbs from Boston to Miami. If you live your whole life in Europe, at least there are proper villages, but it's pretty hard to get more than a few miles away from other people, even in the Alps. If you can get to the Amazon or the Sinai or the Kashmir, then you can enjoy some peace and quiet at the risk of running into soldiers/militants/narcos. In the neighborhood of Everest/Annapurna, roads and cell towers are on the rise. Or you can freeze your tits off in the great frozen north, or file detailed travel plans with China and struggle to arrange for transport to remote areas. The combination of accessible/inaccessible in the American west plus the relative stability is unique, it is a refuge, and this kind of thing is disappearing from the world. We'll be much poorer if we give it up, certainly the future will be bleaker, even if some people feel like they are getting a sweet deal on the acreage.
umeshunni 2y ago
FYI that these two agencies have about 55000 employees in all, so this is about an 8% RIF
whoitwas 2y ago
This shit makes me want to cry. I might have to go camp in a tree before all is said and done.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  [flagged]
meltyness 2y ago
Lets go with 'layoff' or 'release' unless that's somehow worse than 'fire' in this context. Also what if the machinery of this arm of government isn't (currently) optimizing the sum of risk-adjusted damage due to mudslides and fires? How do you propose we start over? As much as I would like to suspect that "Edward Helmore" might have some background in Civil Engineering or statecraft more generally, it seems he's just a New York-based author who writes for a British publication, maybe he's not the best to defer for about the consequences of this area...? I mean, it's not joke, people lose homes in fires and mudslides, and it's not like Trump doesn't know this, but if the current regime isn't optimally preventing or responding to these, then your options are pretty much to just try again.
Whatarethese 2y ago
This shit is just getting so exhausting. I really wish congress had an ounce of bravery and say no to his stuff but nope, they are as pathetic as him.
- tombert 2y ago
  Musk has infinite money, it wouldn't surprise me if he's hired a private investigator for every single member of congress and has blackmail for a lot of them.
  - LgWoodenBadger 2y ago
    What is blackmail-worthy these days with respect to US politicians? Seems to be pretty much nothing these days.
    - tombert 2y ago
      I think finding a gay affair for basically any of the Republicans would still be viable blackmail.
Gud 2y ago
I have a feeling large parts of this pristine blue and green ball will be further enshittified by the greedy men who rules it. I was always amazed at how much of the US is national parks, what a treasure for you guys over the pond I thought. My home country also has large swaths of untouched land but my content is way overcrowded. I feel sorry.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
Another own goal.
esalman 2y ago
It's funny (and sad) that the US federal workers are being made to experience the same FUD we immigrants face for years, some for decades, over job security, livelihood, taking care of family etc. That too for absolutely no good reason, given how well the economy is doing.

123 points by rntn 2y ago

Parks being unable to handle normal crowds sucks. Out of control fire seasons due to poorly managed vastly understaffed land is a catastrophe. What a catastrophic self own, America.

somerandomqaguy 2y ago
It's unfortunately predictable. IIRC Trump has been consistent about wanting to enable more resource extraction from of the public lands and did so under his last term. I assume he's going to do so again this term, it's mostly a question of when and how much.
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
The parks might have to close with this level of cuts, right?
gorbachev 2y ago
The next phase on this is to use prisoners, including immigrants waiting for deportation, and unemployed people as emergency workers. They'll make a deal with the private prisons to pay the owners for supplying workforce when needed. Unemployment benefits will be tied to a commitment to "volunteer" for emergencies.
jsbisviewtiful 2y ago
Many of us adults in the room saw this coming and tried to stop it. Unfortunately those who didn’t want the “self own” were outnumbered by the truly stupid.

nine_zeros 2y ago

When everything is secondary to billionaires right to exploit the country for their own greed.

sour-taste 2y ago
Sure seems like some companies will enjoy encroaching on public land when there are no rangers to enforce regulations.

mlhamel 2y ago

[flagged]

MrMcCall 2y ago
[flagged]
wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
theli0nheart 2y ago
The American people voted for this.
- vkou 2y ago
  A significant subset of the American people voted for this. This is their gift to the world. A subset that is almost as large was appalled by this.
  - roamerz 2y ago
    It’s crazy how divided we are on the issues. In the last 4 years the needle went so far left, way past what even traditional Democrats wanted. Now it’s heading to the right faster than a Falcon 9 rocket. The people in the center are probably just frustrated. The far left are visibly enraged and the far right are celebrating at every EO. Crazy times.
    - majormajor 2y ago
      > In the last 4 years the needle went so far left, way past what even traditional Democrats wanted. Not in many useful ways by global standards of "left." There was a certain amount of public investment in infrastructure, but beyond that... Better public healthcare? Getting prescription prices under control? The use of left-leaning methods to address housing prices (rent control, say)? The FTC went after some mega-corps, at least, but without much hope of success because the legislature didn't do anything new in the M&A or antitrust space.

cma 2y ago

Nonmilitary federal employee payroll only makes up ~5% of the budget. This isn't about money.

sour-taste 2y ago
Of course not it's a gutting of the federal government to prevent it from regulation or enforcement of anything that would limit the power of billionaires and companies.
MrMcCall 2y ago
[flagged]
- atoav 2y ago
  The question is what is there to do now, especially for those living in the US. My opinion is that probably strong and organized civil resistance is probably the only good venue now. Be it churches, clubs, unions or whatever. But not individuals in their homes.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    Go within yourself, connect with our Creator. Beg It to make you a servant of love. You have good ideas. Bolster them with the power of love, my friend. It's our entire purpose, and love requires fighting injustice and cruelty. As to what to do? Connect with the Source and let It guide you. "There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams
    - computerthings 2y ago
      > "There's God's side and the other side." --Katt Williams This reminds me of one of my favorite things: > Now I am enjoying the last rays of the sun again, marveling at the incredible beauty of everything that has not been created by man. The red dahlias at the white garden gate, the tall serious fir trees and the trembling golden birches with their now shining trunks in front of all the green and rust-colored foliage, the golden sun that enhances the luminous colorfulness of every single thing instead of, like the glowing summer sun, smothering everything that still wants to move next to it. Everything is so astonishingly beautiful that I do not yet know what kind of feeling my speechless heart should develop for it, for it is not yet mature enough for pure joy; it is amazed and content with delighted astonishment. > Isn't it puzzling enough, and if you don't know the reason for it, almost frightening, that everything is so beautiful? Despite the terrible things that happen. Something great and unknown has intruded into my sheer joy in everything beautiful, namely a sense of its Creator, whom the innocent created creatures praise with their beauty. > Therefore, only man can actually be ugly because he has the free will to separate himself from this song of praise. And now one could often think that he is capable of roaring over this song with the thunder of cannons and cursing and blasphemy. But I realized last spring that he can't, and I will try to side with the victors. -- Sophie Scholl in a letter to her friend Lisa Remppis, October 1942 Of course just boiling it down to "love" is prone to misunderstandings, and bringing up "God" is like whipping out a hand grenade on HN. People with different perspectives read these words differently, and of course we get triggered by the religious fascists it makes us think of; but what can you do. Yet also: > But I have learned that a hard spirit without a soft heart heart must be just as unfruitful as a soft heart without a hard spirit. I believe the sentence comes from Maritain: "Il faut avoir l’esprit dur et le coeur tendre". A word that is not experienced by the soul is a dead word, and a feeling that is not the womb of a thought is in vain. -- Sophie Scholl, January 1942

darknavi 2y ago

The plays perfectly into the conservative dream to sell off tons of public lands to the private sector.

ty6853 2y ago
Which coincidentally is what most Americans can trace their deed back to, save a small fraction that was privately chartered by order of the king from the get go.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  What is the relevance of this?
- TeaBrain 2y ago
  As if most Americans were still in possession of their original Homestead Act lands.
  - ty6853 2y ago
    Someone (read most people west of the Mississippi at the very least) is in possession of homesteaded or sold land and without that we'd be in an even more serious housing crises. There is an element of hypocrisy. We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I had to build on truly terrible desert shithole land due to insane land prices (and even burnt out trailers were 150k+ so building a shack on vacant land was my only option), much worse than much of public land, I'd prefer others not have to suffer that.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      > We ought to share our land with our youth to homestead, in this housing crisis. I do sympathize, but this is just so incredibly short-sighted. And allowing politicians to enrich themselves (and their already rich developer/landlord buddies who caused the housing crisis) by selling us back what we already own is no fix at all. We really shouldn't set the precedent of letting politicians buy votes from us by temporarily alleviating the problems that they themselves have caused. The east coast is already a concrete nightmare of conurbation and paved suburbs from Boston to Miami. If you live your whole life in Europe, at least there are proper villages, but it's pretty hard to get more than a few miles away from other people, even in the Alps. If you can get to the Amazon or the Sinai or the Kashmir, then you can enjoy some peace and quiet at the risk of running into soldiers/militants/narcos. In the neighborhood of Everest/Annapurna, roads and cell towers are on the rise. Or you can freeze your tits off in the great frozen north, or file detailed travel plans with China and struggle to arrange for transport to remote areas. The combination of accessible/inaccessible in the American west plus the relative stability is unique, it is a refuge, and this kind of thing is disappearing from the world. We'll be much poorer if we give it up, certainly the future will be bleaker, even if some people feel like they are getting a sweet deal on the acreage.

umeshunni 2y ago

FYI that these two agencies have about 55000 employees in all, so this is about an 8% RIF

whoitwas 2y ago

This shit makes me want to cry. I might have to go camp in a tree before all is said and done.

MrMcCall 2y ago
[flagged]

meltyness 2y ago

Lets go with 'layoff' or 'release' unless that's somehow worse than 'fire' in this context. Also what if the machinery of this arm of government isn't (currently) optimizing the sum of risk-adjusted damage due to mudslides and fires? How do you propose we start over? As much as I would like to suspect that "Edward Helmore" might have some background in Civil Engineering or statecraft more generally, it seems he's just a New York-based author who writes for a British publication, maybe he's not the best to defer for about the consequences of this area...? I mean, it's not joke, people lose homes in fires and mudslides, and it's not like Trump doesn't know this, but if the current regime isn't optimally preventing or responding to these, then your options are pretty much to just try again.

Whatarethese 2y ago

This shit is just getting so exhausting. I really wish congress had an ounce of bravery and say no to his stuff but nope, they are as pathetic as him.

tombert 2y ago
Musk has infinite money, it wouldn't surprise me if he's hired a private investigator for every single member of congress and has blackmail for a lot of them.
- LgWoodenBadger 2y ago
  What is blackmail-worthy these days with respect to US politicians? Seems to be pretty much nothing these days.
  - tombert 2y ago
    I think finding a gay affair for basically any of the Republicans would still be viable blackmail.

Gud 2y ago

I have a feeling large parts of this pristine blue and green ball will be further enshittified by the greedy men who rules it. I was always amazed at how much of the US is national parks, what a treasure for you guys over the pond I thought. My home country also has large swaths of untouched land but my content is way overcrowded. I feel sorry.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

Another own goal.

esalman 2y ago

It's funny (and sad) that the US federal workers are being made to experience the same FUD we immigrants face for years, some for decades, over job security, livelihood, taking care of family etc. That too for absolutely no good reason, given how well the economy is doing.