Comment is Censured and Censored by the Manzanar Committee*

On August 4^th 2013 I posted a short comment to a the following Manzanar Committee blog:

http://blog.manzanarcommittee.org/2013/08/03/so-far-so-good-for-national-park-service-staff-at-tule-lake/

As the Committee posting was an enthusiastic "three-cheers" for the NPS, I could not resist offering advice to the Committee about being too over-enthusiastic about the NPS, especially in light of the numerous cases of abuse of human and employee rights that I have documented over the last 10 years.  My comment may have been posted briefly, but was quickly removed—no surprise there.  What was surprising, however, was the manner in which my comment was dismissed (copied from the Manzanar Committee bog site listed above on September 5^th 2013): 

Chad Montreaux says:

August 4, 2013 at 9:28 PM

From the moderator: This comment has been deleted.

The author has made some very serious allegations against National Park Service staff at Manzanar National Historic Site, Tule Lake, and at other NPS locations/offices, but has ignored requests to provide verifiable evidence to support his claims.

Without verifiable evidence, the allegations are baseless hearsay, and highly inflammatory. Because of that, they are not appropriate for publication on our blog.

The Manzanar Committee took no position on the claims made by the author.

The main problem is that I was never contacted by the “moderator” for the information that she claims I refused to supply.  I certainly could not “ignore requests" I did not receive.  Of course, I had to post a response to the Manzanar Committee comment.  I did that on September 5^th 2013.  Because I suspect this response will also be censured and censored, I will post that response below for your edification:

Dear Moderator:

Thank you for reading and publishing my comment, however brief that consideration may have been.  My intention in not providing “verifiable evidence” for the allegations in my comment was to protect my sources, many of whom are rightfully terrified by the tyrannical power NPS management wields over their lives.  (This is not unlike the tyrannical power the WRA and US government held over people of Japanese ancestry during WWII.)

The intent in my comment was to be “inflammatory” in the best sense of the word: provocative, incendiary, rousing, fomenting, seditious, subversive, and mutinous.  When a dogmatic, unjust paradigm dominates a culture it is the duty of every thinking citizen to become an unyielding source of “inflammatory” criticism of that injustice.  If I am not mistaken, you own organization was created by a group of such “inflammatory” speakers and thinkers who challenged the paradigms of the day with provocative, incendiary, and subversive concepts such as: the forced removal and false incarceration of Japanese Americans was unconstitutional, unjustified, and  policies which were derived from racist origins.  This was clearly an “inflammatory” statement for the majority of Americans throughout a significant portion of the 20^th century.   Unfortunately, an embarrassing percentage of Americans continue to hold  to this racist paradigm well into the 21^st century.   I am a great advocate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who also made “inflammatory” statements, such as the words I try to live by, written from the Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”   For me, there is nothing more uniquely American than our right as citizens to push forward “inflammatory” ideas to challenge injustice and abuse of power.

I was also a bit confused by your statement that my “allegations are baseless hearsay.”  What confuses me is that the foundation of this statement lies on the suggestion that I “ ignored requests to provide verifiable evidence to support [my] claims.”  You see, I find this statement from your moderator “hearsay,” because I never received any request to provide verifiable evidence to support my claims.  This type of circular reasoning discredits me for something I did not do.  Does not this type of practice sound suspiciously similar to Earl Warren’s preemptive actions against all people of Japanese ancestry in California based on the absurd reasoning that lack of any evidence of sabotage and espionage by the Japanese Americans was proof that they were planning to implement such actions in the immediate future?  I am doubled confused, because I thought we, as a nation, had evolved beyond these types of circular, groundless convictions.  

I would also caution you and your organization against making arguments to dismiss “hearsay” evidence.  All of the evidence that the people of Japanese ancestry experienced emotional and psychological injury and distress as a result of the removal and internment experience is, in fact, “hearsay.”  There are neither verifiable evidence for nor physical scars of such injuries.  It is indeed unfortunate that we live in a society where victims of abuse and hostility are additionally fraught with the burden of “proof” of their injuries while the perpetrators of such injustice can hide their actions behind such legalities as claims of “hearsay.”  This type of injustice is epidemic within the National Park Service (NPS) wherein all conflicts between Management and employees are resolved based on veracity quotients fabricated by multiplying the GS level of the person positing her version of the incident. (Please see the reference to that claim provided below.)

If your lack of requesting the verifiable information upon which I based my comment to your blog was an oversight,  please allow me to provide you with the some of that requested information now:

1) If you would like to know more about NPS anti-union activities, particularly at Manzanar, please contact:

Laborers Local 220 representative Douglass Kessler:   estellack@aol.com

2) For the evidence of the general malaise within the NPS caused by dysfunctional and abusive managers, please look to Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey http://www.fedview.opm.gov  (since 2004, the NPS has hovered in the bottom-most rankings for Employee Satisfaction results).  The National Parks Traveler http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2011/11/national-park-service-falls-best-places-work-rankings9091 does a fair job of outlining the generalities of the NPS data.  To fully comprehend how damning the survey results are to the policies and actions of the predatory NPS management, however, I will refer you to the data website for the survey, which will require from you a certain familiarity with spreadsheet files to obtain the NPS results http://www.fedview.opm.gov/2012FILES/FEVS2012_PRDF_CSV.zip

I would also be pleased to refer you to the NPS commissioned report: “National Park Service Employees Opinions About Factors Contributing To Workplace Satisfaction Research Findings conducted on behalf of the Center for Park Management by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. December 22, 2008,”  but alas, I cannot find it on line.  I have seen this report and how damning it is to NPS management.  I would suspect that the report has been buried.  Please take time to seek this report out; if I find it I will send you a link and/or post a PDF on my blog site.  

3) For additional information about the dysfunction and criminal misuse of power by NPS managers, all the way to the top of the agency, I would like to refer you to Paul Berkowitz and his break-thru book, The Case of the Indian Trader.  I would also suggest that you contact him directly, as I have, for a deeper understanding as to how all of the accountability programs within the NPS have been co-opted by management to protect hostile, abusive, and criminal managers from staff  “allegations [that] are baseless hearsay, and highly inflammatory.“  (I love your rhetoric here—I have been shown numerous copies of “confidential” NPS findings for grievance against management, which were dismissed using the exact same verbiage.  Your “moderator” does not work for the NPS; does she?)   I would also refer you to Paul Berkowitz and his book for more information on the “inflammatory” statement I make above about the manipulation of information by NPS managers to protect dysfunctional management. 

I can provide many more verifications for my claims.  In the interest of brevity, however, I will end here and make that additional information available to you and your readers on my blog. 

Sincerely,

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA

*On September 6, 2013, I noticed that the Manzanar Committee had posted the comment I sent to their blog on September 5th.  I clearly underestimated the integrity of the Manzanar Committee and would like to formally apologize to that fine organization for my mistaken assessment.  I do, however, disagree with the moderator's comment to my current post.  I furthermore would state, for the record, that NPS management policies that are hostile to social justice and the rights issues of their employees (at Manzanar NHS, of all places!) are "excessively-germane" to any discussion of the success or failure of NPS involvement as stewards at Sites of Conscience.  Because the Manzanar Committee provides such effective advocacy for human rights, equality, and social justice, I will remove myself from this discussion at this time.  I sincerely wish the Manzanar Committee the greatest success in their mission.     

America's Worst Idea

America's Worst Idea 

Dear Reader:

This is a rather old-school blog.  You will not find anything flashy or eye-catching here. My attempt with this blog is to shed light on the issues of social and human justice that we all struggle with.  I worked for the National Parks Service (NPS) for ten years and was completely invested in concept of the National Parks as "America's Best Idea," a concept so effectively promulgated by Ken Burn's beautiful documentary.   After 9 years of faithful and outstanding service, I found myslef at odds with my vindictive and abusive supervisor.  Naively believing that the NPS was indeed the honorable, moral, and sincere organization the Ken Burn's described, I attempted to first address the issues with supervisor to the superintendent of my park.  When that failed, I brought my concerns to the attention of the regional NPS office.

Long story short-- I was forced out of the NPS by the combined might of my supervisor, superintendent, and the regional NPS office.  NPS management is one of the most corrupt systems in the US federal government.  I sincerely believe that the concept of National Parks is truly "America's Best Idea."  Placing such national treasures in the hands of a predatory and abusive bureaucracy like NPS management is a really, really bad idea.  Placing the an agency like the NPS in the position of stewards over sites of conscience and social justice is morally wrong and counter-productive.  NPS management lacks the honor, dignity, and integrity to represent the highest ideals of American democracy.  Placing critical historic sites of injustices in the hands of the NPS is in itself an injustice and is "America's Worst Idea."  

Maybe we cannot change all the injustice in the world.   I believe that we can begin a new age of accountability and transparency if we have the courage to bring light to the injustices that bureaucracies try to hide with levels of secrecy and "confidentiality." But we need to start somewhere.  I say, let's start with the NPS.  Let us speak about what has been forbidden.  Would not it be something if we could transform this high-profile agency into a standard for honor and integrity?

Chad Montreaux
Newell, CA

Informal Interpretation Sites of Conscience 4

Informal Interpretation at Sites of Conscience 

            Part 4 of 4:  The National Park Service-- Falling Short of the Challenge

By including Sites of Conscience into the National Park Service system, the NPS has created a mission mandate for social integrity and social leadership.  This mandate is implicit in the directives of the NPS Director’s Orders, which define the key components of informal interpretation for Site of Conscience as facilitating opportunities for visitors to make emotional and intellectual connections with the site and in prescribing that the interaction with visitors should be based on the visitor’s needs.  This mandate places interpreters into the intense emotional situations associated with Sites of Conscience on a daily basis.  These stressful emotional environments have the same potential of affecting the health and welfare of both visitors and staff as do the fumaroles and geysers of Yellowstone.  Yet, to date, the NPS has no system in place to monitor how these highly emotional interactions are affecting either visitors or staff.*  The Critical Incident Debrief may provide a good model for assessing the emotional effects and stresses on the staff at Sites of Conscience.  Yet because these emotional stresses may be cumulative, it would be important to have regularly scheduled debriefs (as with base-line hearing testing for staff working in noisy environments) rather than wait for the damage to manifest.

As interpreters at Sites of Conscience, we are in uncharted territory.  We have become the explorers of the social landscape created by these sites.  It is up to us to define, refine, and clarify our mission.  It is up to us to find effective and sustainable ways for visitors to make emotional and intellectual connections with the injustices represented by our sites without putting coworkers and ourselves at emotional risk.  It is up to us, through our informal interpretation to initiate a process for the visitors that may lead to healing, if they choose to do so. 

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA

The author originally wrote this in 2011 when he was still idealistic and naive enough to believe that NPS had the honor, integrity, and dignity to operate Sites of Conscience.  From a 2013 perspective, the NPS most certainly does not posess any of these attributes.  Read the other postings on this blog if you have need of more information on the criminal dysfucntion of the NPS.

*The NPS does offer a free Employee Assistant Program (EAP) to help staff through emotional and psychological difficulties.  This program, however, is confidential and is forbidden by statue from communicating with the NPS.  The EAP counselors can neither provide “monitoring” information back to the NPS as to how the working environment is affecting the staff nor can EAP make recommendations to management as to improving the emotional health and welfare within the working environment. 

The EAP program and all leadership, team building, and employee training programs in the NPS exist so that NPS management can detract attention away from their own abusive and incompetent actions and to enable management to psychologically rape NPS employees.  Stay tuned to the blog for in-depth  details of this process. 

Informal Interpretation Sites of Conscience 1

Informal Interpretation at Sites of Conscience 

            Part 1 of 4:  The National Park Service Mandate 

National Park Service Director’s Orders

6.  Personal and Non-Personal Services

             6.1 Personal Services

Personal services are those in which staffs... facilitate opportunities for emotional and intellectual connections between the resources and the visitors.

By their nature, Sites of Conscience are rife with emotion and create emotional dichotomies.   The National Park Service (NPS) mandate (see above) for these sites is to provide a venue where visitors can experience and confront these potentially volatile emotions.   Sites of Conscience exist as recognition of a historical event wherein one group of people inflicted an injustice on another group of people. Historically, the perpetrators of the injustice created an institutionalized system of rationalizations and intellectual exemptions to justify their actions and defend their belief systems.  The victims of the injustice received and often continue to carry the emotional injury and trauma as a result of that injustice.  The designation of a Site of Conscience carries an implicit recognition that: 1) an injury and trauma was created from the perpetrated act; and 2) the perpetrated act was an injustice.  This dual recognition usually represents a de facto judgment against, and reversal of, the institutionalized belief system that created the injustice.  Too many visitors, this reversal of institutional beliefs is a greater affront than the initial injustice.  Sites of Conscience are sites of contention.  The diametrically opposed perspectives implicit in Sites of Conscience create unique challenges for evaluating visitor’s needs and facilitating opportunities to create NPS mandated emotional and intellectual connections to the site. 

All visitors to Sites of Conscience experience a degree of injury, whether that injury results from the trauma of the injustice, empathy for the victims of the injustice, guilt over perceived culpability in perpetrating the injustice, or the emotional injury and trauma that results from questioning and accusing the motivations and actions of an institutionalized belief system that the visitor may still be part of.  With a mandate to facilitate an emotional connection with the site, it is critical for the staff at Sites of Conscience to realize that the nature of this connection will most likely be an injury. Director’s Order  #6  Section 6.1.2 further clarifies the role of informal interpretation:

“[a]n informal visitor contact is an encounter between a visitor and an interpreter in which the objectives are defined by the visitor’s needs.”  

If the commonality of the visitors to a Site of Conscience is an emotional injury, then the common “need” of the visitor is for healing.  

Healing emotional injury and trauma requires a complex, cyclical process involving:  1) recognizing the emotional response; 2) acknowledging that the response is rooted in emotional injury and trauma; 3) understanding the origins of that injury.  Sites of Conscience provide the venue and informal interpretation can provide the facilitation for healing.  Most visitors to Sites of Conscience have already acknowledged that they have an emotional response to the event.  It is, in fact, this emotional response that draws these visitors to the site in the first place. The physical visit to the site establishes the connection between emotional injury and cause.  The interpretive materials and interactions at the site provide the intellectual understanding of how and why the injury happened.  The role of informal interpretation at Sites of Conscience is to facilitate this process.  A first visit a Site of Conscience may be emotionally overwhelming for a visitor attempting to understand the source of their injury.  Subsequent visits continue to provide an emotional response, each one slightly different and with new understanding and awareness.  Each subsequent visit provides the visitor with the opportunity to touch and verify that the injury was and continues to be real and to bring new awareness into the source of the injury.  This is the cyclical nature of healing.

There are several pitfalls for the interpreter at a Site of Conscience that may interfere with visitors’ making the emotional and intellectual connections with the site that they need to work through their individual processes of healing.  These pitfalls include: empathy, level of emotional comfort, personal belief systems, and forgiveness. 

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization Part 4 of 4

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization;

            The Dysfunctional Inner Circle of the National Park Service

Part 4 of 4- Isolation and Domination- Inherent Conditions of NPS Employment

The second step for abuse requires the predator to isolate the victim.  The very nature of work in the remote locations of most NPS sites isolates employees from friends, families, and support systems.  Isolation is inherent in the job.  Isolation, in and of its self, is not necessarily abuse.  The totalitarian and authoritarian structure of the NPS, however, creates situation where if managers and supervisors in remote National Park site have the least inclination toward predatory behavior, they can and readily do take advantage of the isolation to victimize their employees.  In his book The Case of the Indian Trader describes the potential risk of this NPS authoritarian structure in the isolation of NPS sites: “the social environment is often rigidly stratified, and the agency is able to exercise a level of control over the resident and even visiting population not seen elsewhere in normal American society.”  This lethal combination isolation and authoritarian power can produce situations where employees may even be isolated from their Constitutional rights by predatory supervisors and managers.  Supporting this idea, Berkowitz offers the following observation from The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) in 2002: “It’s apparent that the NPS needs to be reminded again that its employees are American citizens with First Amendment rights.”

The final step of victimization requires the predator to exercise control and domination over the isolated and defenseless victim.  It would be imprudent to believe that the National Park Service was created to provide opportunities for predatory managers and supervisors to victimize employees.  It would be criminal, however, not to accept that circumstances associated with working for the NPS have created a cult of abuse that quickly overwhelmed all the positive aspirations of the NPS.  The overwhelming evidence from employees and from  internal NPS documentation suggests the latter statement is true.  Despite all the rhetoric and seductive statements of the NPS mission, NPS management has de-evolved into one of the most authoritarian and tyrannical agencies in the US government.  The cult of predation that feeds this system begins in the isolated parks where managers and supervisors have nearly complete control over the lives of their employees.  NPS management has hijacked the rights and avenues for advocacy implicit in the boards, program, and departments outlined above.  The explicit purpose for this coercion of these programs is to strengthen the tyrannical authority and power that NPS management holds over its employees.  Paul Berkowitz, in his book The Case of the Indian Trader, corroborates this observation:

The unspoken social pressures and psychological impacts of this type of environment where employees may literally live next door to or across the street from their own supervisors, produce workers that over time become extremely obedient to and dependent on their employer for virtually every aspect of their lives.  

This sounds exactly like the final requisite stage that Leslie Morgan Steiner describes as being necessary for predation, victimization, and domestic violence-- domination over the victim. 

Again, I’m not suggesting that the NPS has become a haven for domestic violence.  However, abuse is abuse; victimization is victimization.  Rating levels of abuse and victimization and drawing an arbitrary line where one type of abuse is unacceptable (physical abuse) and another type of abuse is tolerated (emotional and psychological abuse) only serves to empower a culture of predation and abuse that judiciously avoids leaving physical bruises. Out of the ground of circumstances required for work in the NPS, the obnoxious weeds of predation, abuse, and victimization have grown and flourished. This is not surprising that all the requisite elements for traditional models of predation and victimization are present in the circumstances of NPS employment.  What is surprising is that so many good people have tolerated and even supported this dysfunctional and predatory behavior within the NPS.  To stand idly by while predatory managers write their own performance standards and work frenetically with other predator managers to create an insulate, abusive culture shrouded in confidentiality and secret records is to deny accountably for your own inaction.  To accept the current double standards for NPS managers’ ethical behavior is to provide tacit approval for these predatory people to act out their personal perversions of justice with impunity.   It is way past time to say “no” to the type emotional and psychological abuse that NPS employees are regularly victimized by.  It is time we recognize that not all injuries bleed and not all scars are visible.  It is time for transparency and accountability in the NPS. 

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization Part 3 of 4

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization;

            The Dysfunctional Inner Circle of the National Park Service (NPS)

Part 3 of 4- The NPS Rhetoric of Seduction

Every year, hundreds of idealistic people are seduced into working for the NPS as a federal employee, a volunteer, or as an interns because of the high-minded values of the NPS mission and by a personal commitment for a working relationship that includes public service. After joining the NPS workforce, these people are continually bombarded with infinite variations of these seductive values cascading down through emails from the President’s office, the Secretary of the Interior’s office, and the NPS Director’s office.  Each one of the messages are designed to reiterate the NPS commitment to merit, equally opportunity, mission, and public service.  A large number of these emails inform NPS employees that they are the single most important resource the NPS has for fulfilling its mission.  These same messages also state the importance of NPS employees in participating in the management of the NPS and promise employees that their perspectives and comments are an integral part of NPS managerial decision-making.  In addition to the top-down emails, NPS employee must take numerous, on-line trainings on the ethical standards expected for NPS employees and on the right and duty of NPS employees to bring issues and problems to the attention of NPS managers.  Processes for NPS accountability are touted as being available through such programs as Equal Employment Opportunity, the Whistler-blower Program, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and the NPS Human Resources Division. If an NPS employee is fortunate enough to obtain a career track position, all of these values and advocacy tools will be reiterated in NPS Fundamentals Training and additional training workshops such as Operational Leadership. These are indeed, high-minded ideals and values.  They would not be seductive, however, if they were true. 

These high-minded ideals and values are categorically not true.  The reality of the values and ethics described above is that none of them are actually available to victims of predatory manager and supervisor.  The systems described above are a one-way street the serves only NPS management. Paul Berkowitz, in his book The Case of the Indian Trader, paints a picture of how the upper management of the NPS is completely insulated from being held accountable to the mission of the NPS, ethics, or the other high-minded ideals outlined above:

In his February 2007 testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee, Inspector General Devaney once again addressed the magnitude of ethics and integrity deficiencies permeating DOI agencies like the NPS. Devaney cited “a culture that lacks accountability,” observing that supervisors generally received lighter punishments than lower-ranking employees and that senior executive service members were “remarkably immune to any adverse action greater than a reprimand.”

Within the NPS it is well known that any employee who files a grievance against a manager or supervisor will eventually be terminated or forced to leave the NPS. The same goes for whistle-blowing.  The NPS has its own Whistler-blower Program, Merit Systems Protection Board (MPSB), Human Resources Division, and even its own Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) program.  These programs are typically housed in the same buildings as the regional NPS management offices.  All of these programs work only to maintain the rigid authoritarian stratification of the NPS and nearly always find in favor of NPS management, not NPS employees.  Many of the officers of these programs designed for NPS accountability are former NPS managers themselves who still have connections and friendships with NPS managers and supervisors.  These accountability program officers often find themselves in the ludicrous position of investigating accusations of hostility, abuse, and ethics violations by their friends and former coworkers.  The results of these investigations are rarely unbiased and the victims of the abuse and hostility from these NPS predators are further victimized by the favorable findings for the predator by the accountability program officers.  These accountability programs serve as advocacy for NPS management, not NPS employees. The same Human Resource officer who advises an employee about filing a grievance against his supervisor will, in all likelihood, be counseling that supervisor on how to defend herself from the very same grievance. It is an incestuous circle that only tends to feed predation and victimization.  MSPB investigations into favoritism and unprofessional behavior by managers and supervisors; Human Resource grievance investigations; and even Equal Employment Opportunity actions are often decided by accountability officers on the basis of secret and (most often) fabricated “insider” records that managers and supervisors illegally keep and share on their employees. 

When one NPS informant requested to see the documents (a right guaranteed by the grievance process) that were used to make the decision on a grievance he filed with a NPS Human Resource officer against a hostile and abusive manager, he was told by the Human Relations officer that no documentation had been used in making the decision.  This same Human Resources officer informed the employee that all of the accusations and complaints against his supervisor had been categorically dismissed and that she had been completely exonerated.  This institutional exoneration provided the predatory supervisory with a “green light” to resume her abuse and victimization with tacit impunity. Another NPS informant described how the MSPB, without consulting with him, subsumed and dismissed an EEO claim he had made against a NPS manager when the MPSB made a decision on another, unrelated matter.  NPS management is also vehemently anti-union and will spend untold tax-payers’ dollars in obstructionist actions to prevent NPS employees from exercising their rights to organize into unions and create a system of advocacy for their rights as employees and citizens. 

The above represents but a fraction of the methodology and deceptions NPS management uses to assure that the high-minded ideals, ethics, and values that were used to entice employees into a relationship with the NPS are not actually available to the employees after NPS managers have subsumed control of employee’s lives.  Clearly, this seduction satisfies the conditions of deception and lies that forms the first requisite step in creating a path to predation, victimization, and abuse. 

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization Part 1 of 4

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization;

            The Dysfunctional Inner Circle of the National Park Service (NPS)

Part 1 of 4- Predation, Abuse, and Victimization

Leslie Morgan Steiner, in her book Crazy Love, describes the three steps of victimization in cases of domestic violence: 1) seduction, 2) isolation, and 3) dominance and control.  Also inherent in these cases of domestic violence is manipulation by the predator of the victim’s emotional involvement and commitment to the relationship with the predator. 

In the first step, seduction, the predator seduces the victim by extolling the virtues and importance of the victim in the nascent relationship developing between the victim and the abuser.  Regardless of whether or not this seduction is calculated or is unintentional on the part of the predator, the result is the same-- to disarm the victim with falsified, tacit promises of empowerment and safety for the victim in the developing relationship.  The seduction targets the victim’s trust and willingness to commit to a relationship for the values expressed during the seduction.  What makes this seduction is that the expressed values are deceptions and lies.  

The second step of victimization requires the predator to isolate the victim from family, friends, and any kind of support systems. During this stage, the predator chooses a situation that places himself in situation of complete control and dominance over the victim.

The final step of victimization occurs after the predator has effectively isolated the victim.   Once isolation has been achieved, the predator is free to control and dominate every aspect of a victim’s life.  At this point, the relationship transforms from the seduction-promised values of equality and interdependence to absolute dominance and control of the victim by the predator.  This is typically the setting where domestic violence and abuse occurs.  By this point the victim has been completely disarmed by the lies and deceit of the seduction and rendered emotionally and psychologically powerless by being removed and isolated from any form of advocacy, intervention, or support. 

I am not and would not posit that National Park Service (NPS) management is guilty of inflicting physical violence on NPS staff.  In fact, the NPS has very strong policies to protect all employees from victimization by physical violence.  On the matter of abuse, however, I am of the mind of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who stated: “[i]njustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  If I may paraphrase, I would say:   “justification of abuse at any level is a justification of abuse at every level.”  As horrific as physical abuse is, I would posit that emotional and psychological abuse can be just as damaging to its victims.  The steps for emotional and psychological victimization are identical with the steps that lead to physical violence victimization.  The dividing line between physical abuse and psychological and emotional abuse is purely arbitrary and capricious.  The result of this division is that emotional and psychological abuse is 1000 times more prevalent in our society than physical abuse, and emotional and psychological abuse is at least 1000 time more acceptable in our society than physical abuse.  Within many United States government agencies emotional and psychological abuse is not only acceptable it has become institutionalized.  Nowhere is this problem of predatory and abusive behavior more egregious than in the National Park Service. 

Chad Montreaux

Newell, CA