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

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 2 of 4

A Cult of Abuse and Victimization;

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

Part 2 of 4- A Collective Call for Help

In every 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 year 2012 was no exception with the overall ranking of the NPS work force dropping to 163rd for all federal agencies.  The NPS would rate dead last in the ranking if the overall numbers for NPS survey results were not bolstered by employees’ very high response to questions about their personal dedication and commitment to the mission and their beliefs that the work they are doing is worthwhile and important.

A careful reading of these employee viewpoint survey results will illustrate that the source of the overall low rankings for the NPS include very low responses to question related to: 1) the effectiveness of NPS merit system, 2) trust and confidence in manager and supervisors, and 3) opportunities for employees to effectively participate in fulfilling the mission of the agency.  All of these issues can be summed-up as the abuse of power by predatory NPS managers and supervisors.  The above website does not allow you parse the NPS results from the rest of the Department of the Interior (DOI).  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, considering this organization is responsible for promoting use of the National Parks.  To fully comprehend how damning the survey results are to the policies and actions of the predatory NPS management, I will refer your 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>. It is not surprising that citizen access to the NPS survey results is difficult and convoluted.  Remember, a key step toward victimization requires the predator to isolate and control the victim.  An important component of this isolation and control for the NPS as a predatory organization is the control of information.  The Federal Employee Viewpoint Surveys clearly show that NPS employees are experiencing undue stress, anxiety, and impaired job satisfaction as a result of actions (or inactions) by manager and supervisors.  It is not surprising that the  results are of theses surveys are purposely obfuscated by the NPS and the DOI because ready access to these survey reports may create sympathy for the victims of NPS predatory and abusive managers.   Remember, from the first part of this series, that two of the requisite conditions for victimization, predation, and abuse involve isolating and controlling the victim.  Controlling information is an effective method of isolating a victim.  If a victim cries out for help and only the abuser hears the cries, does the victim still need intervention?

This culture of institutionalized abuse and predation within the NPS is implemented and perpetrated by the same three stages that Leslie Morgan Steiner describes for victimization in the cases of domestic violence in her book Crazy Love: 1) seduction, 2) isolation, and 3) dominance and control. In the NPS, these steps are particularly egregious because the cult of personality within the NPS effectively creates and sustains this victimization by providing the venue, opportunities, and institutional precedents for abusers within the NPS to prey upon their victims.  

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