Appalachian Trail 2018 Election Scam

Appalachian Trail 2018 Election Scam
The social service agency known as the Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a political fiefdom which presents a slate of candidates it has chosen to be board members; conducts a sham election in which ATC members may vote either for, or against it’s whole slate of board anointed candidates. It then announces that all chosen candidates have been elected. The most recent scam was August 12, 2018. The ATC does not even announce a tally of yes/no votes. To acknowledge the pittance of members who participate, to recognize any no votes, would be to admit any resistance to this farce. This contrived election is, of course, exactly how all third world repressive, dictatorial regimes conduct business. Exactly.
A very small number of elitist reformers wield total control in this organization. They have the power and now consciously choose to manipulate all things ATC.
This successful, well established organization, has hired professional fundraisers and is reaping a whole lot of donated money. The funding rich ATC has broadened its reach by using the good name of the trail as platform to lobby causes and a political agenda, that have nothing to do with the trail. The hijacked Appalachian Trail is now merely a forum for the politics of the very few who control the donated money.
ATC members may easily verify the truth of these statements by examining the content of the 4 most recent issues of the ATC publication. “A.T. Journey’s” has clearly transitioned both explicitly, and subtly, into the social engineering voice of this lobbying effort, the indoctrinating voice of this political perspective. Every issue in the last year is replete with political indoctrination.

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Recognize that your donated dollars are being spent for political causes that have nothing whatsoever to do with preserving and protecting the Appalachian Trail.
The ATC through “A. T. Journeys” fosters the politicized, unsupported, meaningless, gobbledygook of the far left. Examples quoted from said issues:
“with a focus on inclusion of those within the opportunity gap”; “promoting diversity and inclusion on public lands”;
“are achieving collective impact”
“by placing a priority on equity and seeking access for underrepresented youth”
The following is a quoted statement decrying a seen excess of old, white, males, by Sandra Mara, Board Chair of the ATC.
“Women and people of color are still in the minority on our trails. Staffs of conservation non profits (The Appalachian Trail Conservancy included) continue to be predominantly white and often predominantly male. Board’s fare even worse, where older, white men still represent the majority of nonprofit leadership.”
How is it that a public relations professional spouts such nonsense? What a travesty, to be burdened by all of these educated, informed, successful, old, white, males, who have volunteered their time, knowledge, experience; and their money? Truly a travesty in need of remediation by these self appointed arbiters of political and social correctness, a dilemma of epic proportions.
I object to being force fed the politics of board member Shalin Desai, who under the guise of a hiking report states “As a queer, South Asian male, I tapped into the LGBT and South Asian

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directories....” Although I was surprised to be told that the ATC has actually separated AT hikers into ethnic and gender categories, in directories, I don’t care about Mr. Desai’s chosen ethnic, nor gender identity. How does that relate to preserving and protecting the trail? It does not. The whole article was simply an artificially constructed guise to allow said board member and his LGBT friend, whom he interviewed, to shout ‘look at me! I’m LGBT and a board member!’
I don’t give a crap if every board member is LGBTQ, or from Mars.
I expect that the Rainbow Coalition supporters that I have met on the AT, the CT, and in life, will attest to the truth of that statement.
I do object to board members, from top to bottom, using the ATC as a platform for personal politics.
What self anointed, self righteous, group has assigned themselves to recruit members based on ethnicity? Answer; ATC.
What are the ATC established quotas for women and non whites on the trail? What is the quota for whites? For males? What is the quota for each age group? God forbid any age, ethnic, sexual, religious group be “underrepresented”!
What self appointed zealot is out there on the trail identifying the ethnicity, gender, politics, and so on, ad infinitum, of all hikers, and pronouncing judgement on same? Answer: The ATC.
What organization is victim of its own intellectual absurdity? Answer; ATC.
The goal of this misguided national social crusade is to ethnicize and genderize every governmental and social activity, every

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breath each citizen, and non citizen takes. The agenda of these so called “progressives” is to divide all humans into ethnic, age, and sexual categories, and then to celebrate all things not white male: as if this robotic categorical division, this egalitarian insistence on blind numerical representation of all things human, will somehow benefit American Society, much less the Appalachian Trail.
How did that crusade work out for them in the 2016 presidential election? Not so much. No. I did not vote for Trump. But I do understand why desperate citizens, weary of being derogatorily categorized by ignorant zealots, made that choice.
I love the Appalachian Trail. But I will not support an ultra left elitist clique of political puppets who have hijacked that trail, and the good will of those who love it, to promote their own political agendas.
It is not now, nor has it ever been their trail.
If you happen to be a member of this organization, if you happen to contribute money to it, recognize that you are financing a far left, social elitist, “progressive” lobby.
If you happen to be an American whose politics is anywhere a fraction to the right of antifa extreme left anarchy,
if you happen to be weary of being targeted for racial, and sexual discrimination, and condemnation on the basis of an accident of birth;
If you object to social and political indoctrination, by self anointed morality sensors;
Then you may wish to reconsider your membership, you may wish to find a different venue to support the American hiking trails, which, (to the apparent consternation of the ATC), belong in fact to the people of America, all of the people of America.

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I thru-hiked the AT in 2013. I have been a member of the ATC, and contributor, since 2011. My objective has been to celebrate and support a National Scenic Hiking Trail.
It was never to be lectured as to what to think, nor indoctrinated as to how to act.
I am done! Not any more! No Mas! Both my membership, and my money will cease in September 2018.
I encourage you also to vote with your money. Join me. Keep it.
Please note that prior to today, I have written in this journal about hiking. Today out of disappointment and absolute frustration; I wrote this note, and I am also posting copies of the two letters, I wrote earlier, and sent to the ATC. Aside from sending my money for seven years, these two letters have been my only other interactions with this organization.
George R. Finn, Jr.

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Open Letter to Appalachian Trail Conservancy

Letter to the Editor:
Open Letter to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Date: 5 February, 2018.
The Hijacking of the Appalachian Trail
Has it now become imperative to award a position of board membership to each person who celebrates claim to every identifiable gender, ethnic, racial, social, political, and religious group? To guarantee absolute equity in all things human? Is board membership to be handed out like candy, at a Fourth of July parade, making certain that each child gets his/her allotted piece?
Or is it most important to appoint the individuals to board membership, who have the best proven qualifications, the best ability to achieve the goal of preserving and protecting the Appalachian Trail?
One would guess, that members having demonstrated social, political, and financial, skills and experience; with demonstrated good judgement, would be the strongest forces in achieving that goal. Which again is to preserve and protect the Appalachian Trail.
It’s about the trail!
Is it imperative to appoint board membership to those whose first thought is; “Me, me, me; and my social, my political, my ethnic, agenda? How can I use the Appalachian Trail as a platform to promote my goals?”
Or, as stated in AT Journeys, is it about service? Might it be more beneficial to appoint board membership to those whose first thought is “the trail, the trail, the trail”?
Regarding AT Journeys, January 2018, and board member Mr. Shalin Desai’s celebration of being a “Queer, South Asian male”: I really do not care. If you are a “Queer, South Asian male”, good for you. Tell me all about it as we hike the trail together. If one's major motivation and qualification for being an ATC Board Member is to advocate for those identities, as he clearly has done in said issue, and not the AT itself, then appointing him to represent me, an ATC member, was ill advised.
While I happily agree that his perspectives would provide opportunity for interesting conversation along the trail, interaction that may be productive to both parties; I have no desire to be lectured, to be indoctrinated, to be held hostage to gender, ethnic, social, political, religious, ideologies, as part of ATC membership. Mr. Desai informed us that

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in seeking advice prior to hiking the AT, that he sought exclusively, the segregated opinions of those who shared his gender, ethnic and social identities. Why did he not simply query input from all former thru-hikers? Is this inclusiveness?
This achievement of board membership, this leeching onto an established organization, and then holding the membership captive to one’s ideologies, to promote one’s causes, is not something to celebrate. This apparent transition of board membership of the ATC and of the publication AT Journeys, into a personal launching platform for political and social agenda, a personal forum of self interest, a personal crusade of advocacy; this use of the ATC name, membership, and money, to promote personal self interest, is ill advised.
The Appalachian Trail is the people’s trail.
The ATC certainly was never intended to be your platform of indoctrination, a venue to lobby your causes. To assert the pretense of impartiality, to decry political polarization, in AT Journeys, and then to participate in it, is dishonest. Campaign for your causes on your own time. Resist reducing the world’s most famous hiking trail to a mere forum for your own personal ideologies.
The Appalachian Trail, and the experience of hiking on it, is a treasure. It is intended to be enjoyed by everyone.
The focus of the ATC and your publication AT Journeys, in representing it, must be the trail and all of the people who tread on it.
George R. Finn, Jr.
Thru-hiked the AT in 2013, and an ATC Member

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Letter to Appalachian Trail Conservancy

Date: 9 March 2016

Dear Sirs/Madams,
I am an ATC member, who has read with interest the information provided, regarding the proposed $1,268,140.00 High Impact Visitor Use Management Project. I support this plan in general, but have serious concerns regarding the Campsite Restoration and Creation, section of the plan.
I thru-hiked the AT in 2013. Since I did not “Slack Pack”, I spent more evenings camped on the trail than some hikers. Finding a flat surface where I could put up my tent; within the parameters of the federal, state, ATC, and local trail club laws/rules/ guidelines/expectations; was the most difficult/frustrating challenge of my hike. This was especially true in the northern one third of the hike.
There is a serious lack of campsites on many parts of the trail.
There were instances where it was not possible to adhere to the laws/rules/ guidelines/expectations, regarding trail use. The only option was to get off the trail, or to ignore the prescriptions of proper hiker conduct. I do understand clearly that you do not wish to hear that.
It is clear to me also, that the High Impact Visitor Use Management Project fails to address this critical issue. This plan sticks it’s head in the sand, and fails to address the lack of usable camp sites.
You propose to spend one million, two hundred sixty eight thousand, one hundred and forty dollars. Most of that money will be spent on Public Relations, Education, Technology, and ATC expansion.
You propose to spend thirty thousand dollars, a pittance, to actually physically improve campsites. Are you kidding me?
It is apparent, that it is possible to become so committed to, so fixated on, protection and preservation, that one loses awareness that the Appalachian Trail exists to be hiked. This trail serves no purpose, if people are not able to use it.
There are designated areas in this country that do restrict all human trespass in the name of protection and preservation. The AT is not one of them. These areas are not called trails.
The many governing entities at the federal, state, local and mountain club levels, and the ATC itself, may succeed in keeping the trail absolutely pristine, only by restricting

all trespass, by any human being. And then we can all look at pretty pictures of the trail and feel blessed.
Extreme positions, promoting preservation and protection, above all else, are not reasonable, regarding public trails. There needs to be some balance, some compromise, between the unachievable ideal of total preservation/protection; and the necessity to acknowledge and to accommodate the camping needs of visitors who actually use this trail.
This plan fails to address the very significant, very practical, very basic, needs of visitors to this trail. Put real money into making the trail useable by visitors.
This letter is an attempt to remind you, that ultimately the Appalachian Trail was conceived, built, and exists; that people may use it.
Sincerely,
George R. Finn, Jr.