Break It, Then Take It
It explains all of this. And it’s catchy. It even rhymes.
Thousands of federal civil servants have been fired recently. Without even trying, I have first-hand examples of the results.
One of my friends has a son who is a wildland firefighter out west. I asked if he’d been fired. No, he hadn’t, but he told me his crew will be understaffed as we head into fire season. Sounds safe.
Another friend was planning a vacation with his daughter to Zion National Park. They were having trouble getting a permit/pass into the park. Irritating.
Another couple friends of mine organize week-long trips all around the world where their clients trail run their way through amazing landscapes. They were having trouble getting permits to run their business through some of our National Parks. Screwing someone’s livelihood is more than irritating.
One of my oldest friends just drove his daughter across the country to put her up in an apartment. She just finished four years of study at CU Boulder. She’s a meteorologist and accomplished her goal of getting hired by the National Weather Service. She got fired.
These indiscriminate firings are supposedly in the name of “efficiency.” It’s laughable. It’s a lie. Particularly when you consider that the tax cuts for the rich that are coming will dwarf any alleged savings that this “unelected bureaucrat” is creating. Weird. I thought we hated unelected bureaucrats. My MAGA congressman was very worried about unelected bureaucrats…until lately. A judge has ruled that these firings need to be reversed because they were illegal. But the uncertainty created by our own leadership with this flail is far worse than anything a foreign power could do to us. Something something enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC. The saboteurs are calling from inside the house.
If only there was a 920-page document that laid out what they were going to do beforehand. I read it. I tried to warn people about their intentions for public land. Nobody gave a shit. So, maybe I can simplify all of this for you. And a hat tip to Steven Rinella of MeatEater fame who gave me the idea for this cute little phrase in 2017 at an outdoor writers conference.
“Break It, Then Take It”
1. Break It.
2. Stand back and point at it saying, “It’s Broken!”
3. Say you are the only one who can fix it.
4. Take it.
5. Line pockets.
Longer Version:
Break It. Destroy the institutions, laws, policies, and procedures that it took 250 years to make. Things like the Antiquities Act of 1906 (National Monuments), Weeks Act (Forest Service), the Organizing Act of 1916 (National Parks), the Wilderness Act of 1964 (Wilderness Areas), Endangered Species Act, Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. I mean, fuck all that shit. Burn it all down.
Stand back and point at it saying, “It’s Broken!” Fire everybody in the Deep State (you know, those evil people who clean out pit toilets, hand out park permits, manage wildlife, fight wildland fires, watch air traffic control radars, measure air quality, predict hurricanes, etc.), and subsequently, when nothing fucking works anymore, you can stand back and show how government is incapable of doing anything because it’s broken. I mean, YOU BROKE IT, but hey, it’s broken now.
Say you are the only one who can fix it. Now you swoop in with your “solution.” All of the solutions will have one thing in common: they will take things that used to belong to the public or were designed to serve the public, and reroute that money and those assets into private hands.
Take it. Install cartoon villains as department heads who are there to destroy and pervert the purposes that these institutions were created for in the first place.
Line Pockets. Take what used to belong to every single American…take what used to be in the service of all Americans…and reroute it into another helicopter, another new house in the Hamptons, more hair plugs, some bolt-on tits for your third wife or 5th baby mama, and more acquisitive purchases to fill that empty hole in your soul that will never be filled no matter what you do.
Let’s try three examples: the US Postal Service, the VA, and our public lands.
I don’t know about you, but since MAGA appointee Louis DeJoy took over the USPS, I have seen a degradation in service. I don’t think I’m the only one. I used to be able to set a timer for when the mail came and I knew the guy’s name. Now, I don’t know when, or even if, the mail will show up each day. I routinely get mail destined for my neighbors. That almost never used to happen. It seems like it’s never the same mailman twice. Oh and in a surprise to nobody, DeJoy has a background in private shipping. So, break the postal service, replace it with private entities, which our MAGA president has recently suggested, and drive that public resource into private hands. The irony is that these Constitution lovers are sabotaging one of the only specific services (postal service) that is mentioned in the Constitution. As an added bonus, screwing up the mail screws up mail-in voting. Two birds, one stone!
The VA has recently participated in the probationary firings that are supposed to be reversed. But they have even more plans to lay off 20% of the VA work force. Like the VFW National Commander said recently, “It’s gonna kill us.” This just after VA enrollments have increased because of the passage of the PACT Act, helping veterans fight off illnesses caused by the burn pits. They have introduced legislation called the ACCESS Act. Ostensibly, it’s a way to get veterans more help by getting them access to non-VA healthcare, in lieu of VA in-patient care. It’s a Trojan horse. It sounds good, but it’s designed to destroy the in-patient VA healthcare system and turn it into an insurance system. They described this exact plan in Project 2025. So, break the VA, turn it into an insurance system that feeds all that taxpayer money directly to private healthcare providers when it used to power the VA facilities and caregivers. They’ll have to, right? Since they won’t have enough personnel. (Because they fired them.) The VA becomes a pipeline from the government directly into the suckling mouths of private companies. These guys sure like the government tit, while being performatively mad at the government tit. (Full Disclosure: I have a 0% disability rating with the VA. It’s the principle of the thing.)
Now, my favorite, public land. Utah recently tried to steal your public land. Wyoming recently tried to steal your public land. Good ol’ Mike Lee from Utah is trying to convince you that you should sell your public land to house the homeless (another Trojan horse). They are reviewing every single national monument and reversing the ones that Biden created. They are trying to eliminate the Presidential ability to create national monuments under the Antiquities Act. Montana is trying to transfer federal public lands there into state ownership (another Trojan horse whereby the state will subsequently sell it to private interests). Your federal public lands are under assault like few times in our country’s history. The firing of public land employees that manage our land, water, fish, and wildlife for all of us is part of that assault. “See? Government can’t manage this land!” (Just like the VA, it’s because they’re firing the land managers.) Their fix has been to install leaders in the Department of Interior, USDA, USFS, and EPA that are overtly hostile to the very idea of federal public land and the North American Model of wildlife management. They are thieves. They are ignoring the law and the Constitution and the Enabling Acts that created their own states. They are ignoring FLPMA of 1976 which says in the very first line that it is the policy of the United States to keep public lands in Federal ownership. (Weren’t they big “law and order” people? Weird.) So, break the public lands system, fix it by selling it off or transferring it to the states, where it will serve to line the pockets of the self-interested and the short-sighted. They will use very patriotic words while stealing what belongs to every American citizen.
Watch every single move that these people make. It isn’t to govern. It isn’t to work in the interest of the public. They don’t give a flying fuck about us. They are here to steal what belongs to all of us in common. “Efficiency” is a lie. Whenever they talk about privatization, they are talking about more money for themselves. Just remember: “Break It, Then Take It.” You won’t be able to unsee it.
Calls to Action
Another pitch for the 5 Calls App. Even if it doesn’t feed you directly to a topic you care about, I’ve found it helpful just to quickly get my representative and senator phone numbers.
I’ve tried to make the following calls to action easy for you by providing links. I mean you could doom scroll or post meaningless shit on the internet that changes nobody’s mind or you could actually do something to fight these fuckers:
Call to Action: Tell your reps NOT to cut VA by 20%
Call to Action: Tell your reps to rehire federal public land employees.
Call to Action: Tell your reps to vote NO on HR 978, Stauber’s bill to mine near BWCA.
Call to Action: Tell your reps to vote YES on Public Lands in Public Hands Act
Call to Action for Minnesotans: Tell your reps to oppose SF570 and HF8 in Minnesota that hinder public opposition to mining near the BWCA.
Call to Action for Minnesotans: Tell your reps to support State bills regarding mining near the BWCA
👏 I used the 5 calls app to quickly access phone number of my app to express my disappointment over his smearing a federal judge regarding an order that dared to suggest the administration needed to take another look at their recent deportations …. And then went ahead and did them anyway.