PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s highest court ruled Thursday that regulators were on safe procedural ground when they approved Plum Creek’s Moosehead Lake housing and resort plan, ending one of the costliest and most contentious development battles in state history.
The state supreme court supported the Land Use Regulation Commission’s rezoning of nearly 400,000 acres in the Moosehead region. The concept plan allows Plum Creek to create up to 975 house lots and two large resorts on roughly 16,000 of those acres over the next 30 years.
Plum Creek must receive permits for each subdivision or resort, all but guaranteeing the regulatory skirmishes with opponents are far from complete. But in the immediate future, the court’s ruling will trigger the completion of a conservation deal guaranteeing public access to 363,000 acres of timberland that will remain working forests.
Supporters hope the combination of land conservation and planned development will provide a boost to a region that was struggling with population loss and high unemployment long before the recent recession.
“I don’t think anybody feels that this is a silver bullet,” said Craig Watt, whose family operates Indian Hill Trading Post in Greenville. “But I think a lot of people see this as an opportunity to enhance the economy of the area.”
LURC’s September 2009 vote on the Plum Creek proposal followed a regulatory review involving 300 hours of hearings, millions of dollars in legal fees, and testimony from thousands of citizens passionate about Maine’s fabled North Woods.
Mainers have been deeply divided over Plum Creek’s plan ever since the company unveiled its first proposal nearly seven years ago. While supporters touted the mix of planned development and conservation, opponents predicted the houses, resorts and roads would mar the natural beauty that has drawn tourists to the region for generations.
Three opponents of Plum Creek’s plan — the Natural Resources Council of Maine, RESTORE: The North Woods and the Forest Ecology Network — promptly appealed LURC’s decision.
A Superior Court justice dismissed most of the group’s claims in April 2011 but nonetheless halted the plan after determining LURC violated its own rules by not holding another public hearing before adopting a substantially rewritten rezoning application. He remanded the case back to LURC for additional hearings.
The Supreme Court disagreed Thursday.
“We conclude that LURC did not violate its procedural rules and did not otherwise err by approving the rezoning petition and concept plan,” the court wrote.
Plum Creek officials were pleased to have the option of moving forward 2½ years after LURC approved their concept plan. That green light arrived, however, at an economic time when high-priced lots for vacation homes are not exactly in high demand.
“We believe the Supreme Court’s decision is the final one and the concept plan is in place as of today,” Mark Doty, a spokesman for Plum Creek in Maine, said in an interview.
“Today’s news is great but it is a very long-term plan,” Doty said. “So we will take care of the conservation [plan] and then consider the market conditions for future development opportunities. It’s been a long legal process and we have had our efforts on hold as we awaited the final outcome.”
Out of additional appeal options, Plum Creek’s critics conceded defeat on the concept plan but pledged to stay involved in the permitting process.
“If Plum Creek decides to move forward with its real estate development, it will have to apply for specific permits, and the development would have to be reviewed and approved before construction could begin,” said Lisa Pohlmann, NRCM’s executive director. “We know that many Maine people have expressed concerns about Plum Creek’s development proposal; there will be additional opportunities for public comment if and when the company files permit applications.”
Jym St. Pierre with the Maine chapter of RESTORE worried that the court’s decision could have wider implications both in terms of LURC’s handling of similar proposals and landowners’ expectations when seeking to rezone for subdivisions. St. Pierre said the fact that LURC allowed privately negotiated conservation deals valued at $25 million to be part of the regulatory review process set a “very troubling precedent.”
“We will see whether this decision today is the starting gun for the end of the Moosehead region,” St. Pierre said.
Of course, several prominent conservation groups either supported Plum Creek’s plan or were active participants in the negotiation process.
The Nature Conservancy, for instance, will pay Plum Creek for conservation easements on 266,000 of the 363,000 acres and transfer those easements to the Forest Society of Maine. The Appalachian Mountain Club and The Nature Conservancy purchased another 41,500 acres from Plum Creek as part of the privately negotiated deal.
Mike Tetreault, executive director for The Nature Conservancy in Maine, said the result will be a 2 million-acre conservation corridor stretching from the St. John River to Moosehead and Baxter State Park.
“That’s all in conservation now and it is the size of Yellowstone Park,” Tetreault said.
Gov. Paul LePage, whose administration inherited the Plum Creek court battle, praised the court action.
“This court decision affirms our belief that good land-use planning, conservation easements on working forests and expansion of the eco-economy in the Piscataquis and Somerset counties can be founded on common ground,” LePage said in a statement. “I commend Plum Creek, conservation groups engaged in the easement, LURC, the forest industry and the Greenville community on their achievement.”
How is this helpful to the people of Maine? Are we the ones that are going to buy these homes? Why is it we sell off the best parts of the state to out of staters? I doubt these will be year round residence homes, there are no jobs up here, more snow birds for the great Maine retirement home.
You don’t think having new residents ANY time of the year will help that depressed area? New residents BUY things and use services. They eat out. They grocery shop. They hire people to fix things. They buy fuel. They pay taxes. All local businesses will benefit. Contractors will get work. You don’t understand any of that?
These are service jobs and temporary labor. We have lots of service jobs. We are completely dependent on other states economies to make our economy move. We need more year round stable employment not merely attending to the needs of the middle class of the North East. Business as usual in vacationland.
The middle class won’t buy these house lots at 1/2 a mill a piece… . I’m happy that they are allowed to build on their own property…
Right…so NO jobs are better.
BTW, how was skiing this year at Squaw? Thought so.
Who can afford to ski anymore?
And you don’t need jobs up there?
Jobs are job I suppose, but sometimes nothing is better then something. I’m merely saying that Mainers can’t afford to live in the beautiful spots of Maine, there is something fundamentally wrong with that. We can’t afford these spots because we are all scrapping for tourism dollars.We need jobs that will encourage young Mainers to stick around and start businesses more far reaching than another storage facility, gas station or auto shop. I guess Maine is just a nice place to visit or retire but few people want to live here year round and build a stable infrastructure.
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with anything. Mainers who make wise choices and work hard CAN afford to. Are you saying that since you can’t nobody should?
How about a nice paper mill up there? That would provide many good paying jobs. You’d be happy then?
Lets not make this personal, you don’t know me. I’ve said my piece. I think we all want what is best for the state and this back and forth is the best way to figure that out.
i can afford it if you and every one I know can and we are middle class if you cant don’t hold others back work harder you sound bitter and jealous. This same issue came up in the 80’s with the sail boat crowd in Portland- the haves and the have not, the haves are expected to pay for the have nots – but the have nots work for it – Obama 2012
obama 2012 does not even come close to what you posted, obama wants to take your hard work and give it to the have nots? he started this whole Wall Street Protest, by dividing the country into the Haves and Haves Not, its not Fair pay your fair share, well 45% does not even pay taxes or gets back way more then they have paid in, what to hell is fair about that.
We are living here, it is beautiful, we have plenty of room and a tourism dollar is just as good as any dollar.
Sounds like the Caribbean.
I can.
I know right, between gas and a lift ticket it gets to be anywhere from a 75-150+ dollar day depending on where you go.
Do not forget a possible hotel room depending on how far ya have to travel.
We need snow to inspire people.
Squaw hasn’t done well since it became politically correct !
Welcome to living in a country based on a service economy. If previous generations hadn’t sold out our manufacturing for the almighty dollar it wouldn’t be like this but greed gets the best of everyone. Blame the politicians, both party’s, when it comes to our economy being based on the whims of the rich and not the sweat of our brow.
Maine’s most profitable industry is the tourism industry, and you don’t hear York County complaining about it.
There is no difference in their forestry plans, they wiil maintain their harvesting practices, Conserve means not to develop the land. So the jobs created are in addition to the one already there , not instead of the jobs already there. Fear not.
you said it vacationland – you dont even get the oint do you
8 dollars an hour is better than 0 dollars an hour.
Beats Jack_Knoph !
Vacation homes are much more viable than GRID scale WIND turbines.
I bet these homes would not sell if thousands of turbines are with-in sight.
Wow, way to throw that in.
I liked it !
exactly-that’s why so many opposed it,including me…
Government is not supposed to be restricting who can own property where, where they are from, or what kind of economy evolves under whose initiative. People do not own property by permission granted only if they “provide jobs” or anything else. This is supposed to be a free country.
Few people retire to an area with no economy. Your concern for people leaving in the winter — or permanently — to avoid being taxed as Maine residents is best addressed by ending the state tax and control policies that punish people, not by further punishing and controlling people in a futile attempt to make them do what you want.
Who cares if they’re not year round? They still pay the taxes. And actually more of these retirees (and also people who work from their homes) are here year round. You would be hard pressed to find a Greenville native who’s not happy about Plum Creek. We know there’s plenty of room here for whoever wants to come. We have a great little town with restaurants, shops, and even a couple of little museums. The school is great, we actually have a hospital, our own fire department and a new transfer station (that we’d love to share the costs of) and the people who are here, love it here. Horray for progress!
How’s Brassau Lake project working out for Rockwood?
different town, different county. Where do you live?
Rockport is really depressing! I just drove through there. Tons of run down buildings and tons of for-sale signs. Most of the businesses are closed up, and they need hundreds of thousands of dollars of work to rehabilitate.
just got back from greenville. I agree some (limited) development is needed (like grand resorts that will draw tourists to the area). What is also needed is some revitalization of your “great little town”. Most of the buildings are run down looking and it is kind of depressing driving through.
What Maine town is not ugly in the spring? Come back once everything blossoms.
Now if we could just get that nut case to release his grip on Squaw Mountain….to all you naysayers from who knows where……we will be fine. We’re not idiots up here, you might say the fittest survived. Come visit us this summer…..
the buildings don’t blossom. The buildings themselves look ugly. Lots of run down homes and commercial buildings.
and I’ve spent plenty of time there in the spring and summer too. The area needs a revitilization for sure.
I guess it’s just hard to believe that the locals would want a bunch of wealthy out-of-staters and their sprawl surrounding such a beautiful lake just to collect some tax revenue and crappy service jobs, but I suppose it’s up to them. No doubt that the tax revenue will help in some ways, but is it really worth it? I spent many years living close to several “resort” towns like Jackson Hole WY and Sandpoint ID, and all I can say is that if the developments go off as planned, plan on big changes. Some will be good, some bad, but it will change. In Jackson Hole, if you are mowing lawns or snowplowing, you live far away. Not only did the taxes go through roof, but suddenly a trailer in town was going for 500k. Not to mention the cost of groceries, and most other goods.
Also, the new “locals” will certainly be National Park lovers, and I imagine they will wonder why they don’t have one.
Good luck.
They OWN the land. Do you own anything? They should be able to do what they want. They OWN it, this is AMERICA. They are not even going to develop 5 % of what they own. You go buy a 10 acre piece of land with your money and listen to someone tell you that you can’t develop .5 of an acre and tell me how you like it. Think about it.
I guess you’re lacking in some basic reading skills, but please explain to me where it is in my post that I mentioned anything about stopping anyone from doing anything at all with their own land. I said “it’s up to them”, so why don’t you take a chill. I own a home and 6 acres, is that enough to have an opinion? My only point was that it will change the area quite a bit. You morons who throw the word America around like it’s some sort of foreign word make me laugh. By the way, the CAPS are lame, maybe you need some meds?
Garbage.
Seriously, that’s all you’ve got? No kids? Too late for that, but I don’t get it? What a tough guy, calling people “garbage” behind a screen name for absolutely no reason. I’m fairly sure you wouldn’t say it to my face. Why don’t you go cry yourself to sleep. Later loser.
Many would love one of those jobs that you refer to as crappy. Do us all a favor, don’t have children
Buy that 10 acres in an unorganized Territory and LURC will do just that.
Repeal LURC
Which is why we are called “Vacation Land”, not only Greenville will prosper, other businees all the way to Greenville will see some business as well.
Maybe unwashed Appalachian trail hikers will find love with SUV-driving yuppies at the bar in Monson. Love that place. laundry in the back…
Don’t forget AMC, BDN–they are also partners in the conservation portion of the Concept Plan.
Plum Creek is the slippery slope many Mainers have feared their whole lives. Tying nature’s wild beauty to economic prosperity cycles is a travesty. The forestlands should stand whether people are rich or poor.
400,000 acres of forestland conserved seems to fit that bill.
Watch, in twenty years, that 400,000 acres will be reduced by Plum Creek – a company that’s been around since the 1860s.
It’s called Capitalism. And, sadly you are correct. For some reason, many Mainers do fear that!
Including me. Capitalism is the cancer of civilization.
Have you seen countries that rely totally on their governments to provide for them.. Wouldn’t you like to work in a government shoe factory?? eat at government restruants, wear government clothes..so cool. I am just wondering when the last time the government developed a product and brought it to market.. Why would anyone put any effort into an Idea or even work hard to achieve a goal for that matter, if the governement were babysitting every move. Eden doesn’t exist
You can’t be serious! You must either be wealthy or are a wealthy wannabe, as only 1% ers or GOPs defend the scourge known as free-market capitalism. It is people like you who allowed Bush-Cheney to deregulate the markets and sink the U.S. into a recession it can’t seem to recover from.
Go study the concepts of shared wealth, dialectical materialism and socialism and tell me that it’s not better than the 1% holding the other 99% of us hostage. Stop grousing about the size of government! When people have to pay such exorbitant taxes, they expect services in return, not a plan to make the rich even richer! For my tax dollars I expect decent roads, affordable healthcare and programs to assist the needy. I could give a crap how BIG the government is as long as its doing its job, which is to promote the health and welfare of 300,000, 000 citizens, not make 1% of them even richer.
In terms of ideology, it’s quite simple:
Republicans believe the function of government is to produce, promote and protect private and corporate wealth.
Democrats believe the function of government is to take care of PEOPLE, not just those with money or those who are fortunate enough to have a job.
There is nothing wrong with economic success or the desire to achieve it. “Dialectic materialism” is an irrational determinism that came from mystic German philosophy of the counter Enlightenment. The notion that anyone who advocates political and economic freedom “must be” wealthy and motivated to preserve his own economic “class” status is a logical fallacy; it is an open substitute for the ad hominem argument. This poster proclaiming himself to be an “intellectual” is a Marxist ideologue who hates individualism and wants us all to be sacrificed to the group with a so-called “shared wealth”, diminishing as a result as we are all dragged down to a lowest common denominator.
Wow.
You need to start shopping for a home in another country.
I don’t think he finds any kind of “shopping” tolerable.
I shop, though not in a “shopping as a contact sport” sort of way. I mean I don’t camp out at Wal-Mart at three A.M. and trample women and children to be the first to buy a plastic Christmas ornament or anything. You know…razors, paper towels, dish soap, motor oil, aluminum foil. Oh SNAP!! I forgot, I am a Bizarre, Elitist, Leftist, Intellectual cyberbot who only PRETENDS to be a consumer. And all because I voted for hope and change…teehee.
I’m cranking the Hendrix and Zeppelin until I can’t hear you guys.
You and I do have something in common!
I think he only wants to shop with money that other people have earned and are forced to give to him.
His “ideal” of submission to the collective would be no “Eden” even if it could exist.
How did that once great state of Maine get littered with so many moronic leftists?
If you believe that “leftists” are bad, I can only imagine what you think of “progressives” (i.e. those with enough vision to change the failing status quo). I am proud to be both a progressive and a Maine citizen.
Progressive liberals are predominantly leftist and have been establishing the failing status quo for the past several years. The “liberal” aspect of the political spectrum turned distinctly left when it abandoned the classical liberalism of intellectuals such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan. You are proud to be a socialist and Statist if the truth is to be told.
I am more a pragmatist than a Statist and embrace socialism as an inevitable redistribution of private wealth.
In terms of economics, I do not subscribe to the GOP’s “trickle-down” theory of wealth, a model which works well in prosperous times only. When economic recessions hit, the wealthy barons tighten their belts, jobs dry up and commodities are at the mercy of political market
management and manipulation rather than simple supply-and-demand (see current rising gas prices). Why? Because capitalism, at its essence, is opportunism.
As the western concept of the nation-state has risen, capitalism’s emphasis on enpowerment of the individual has undermined the concepts of “the public good.” The quest for
private and corporate wealth is at cross purposes with the quest for an ordered society.
While I may also be an intellectual, unlike Moynihan, I don’t see government’s function as problem solving. I am more inclined to embrace the utilitarian aspects of a democratic republic as the Greeks drew it up, with nods to Jeffersonian ideals and “continental” philosophies, such as the governance models espoused by Hobbes and Locke. The concepts of
the “greater good,” the “common good” and the “public good” are central to my ideological beliefs.
A real democracy such as that of the Roman-Grecos differed from ours in that the power of their citizenzry was not usurped by two self-serving political parties as it is today in the U.S.
I’m sure Plato would have recognized Hitler’s Brown Shirts before they rose to Nazis, and the Bush-Cheney regime as neo-fascists in their consolidation and misuse of political
powers for personal profit (sorry about the alliteration!).
I see a clear pattern here in Plato’s social retrograde: nobility to meritocracy to esoterica to apathy to evil. It goes from those leaders who are righteous (i.e. the “Philosopher King”), to those doing their relative best, to those who understand and utilize the nature of power, to those who are concerned with the sharing of power, to those who would impress their own selfish will on others. In other words, governance has gone from being about common agenda to being about the cult
of personalities who compete for power (see Machiavelli).
Primarily for these reasons, I favor elitism (those most qualified by knowledge, intent and expertise should make decisions for those who know nothing, don’t care and don’t
participate) over populism (majority rules).
Today, despite the polarization brought about by our unparalleled economic disparity, the citizens of this country would howl at the notion of a “New Deal,” this despite the fact that many of our older citizens are already being forced to choose between buying food, medication or heating fuel!
This mentality is largely the result of the socioeconomic influence of multinational corporations and Republican supply-side financial theories based on Adam Smith, laize-faire world economics and the perceived benefits of
unbridled capitalism. This mentality says if you can get labor and materials cheaper in Taiwan, then it is permissible to ship American manufacturing jobs overseas in the name of investor profits.
Darwin was most assuredly correct about “survival of the fittest,” but the unholy by-product of this is the fact that until the less-fit are wiped out, their victims fester and die in third-world nations like Africa.
Due to complexities of modern life which didn’t exist in Darwin’s pre-Industrial Revolution days, one could even posit the odd notion that adaptation as a biological species is today secondary to adaptation as citizens of nation-states which ruthlessly compete for power, wealth and finite resources in a world being daily poisoned by the cancer of runaway capitalism.
The reality is that here in the 21st century, economic disparity is now killing the U.S., too. Yet Republican supply-siders use moral relativism to shrug it off. for them it’s always been “profits before people.”
So thanks for trying to stereotype me, Liberal Soup, but I am not a proud anything (Statist, socialist, etc.) Rather, I am a concerned citizen of global civilization who favors a civic form of government rather than a political one.
Every authoritarian political philosophy in history has been rationalized by the myth that the individual is not capable of thinking and acting for his own life and therefore needs an elitist dictator to tell him what to do and make him do it. Progressivism is the progressive imposition of more and more social controls to reach the level of state control that progressives know they can’t get away with all at once. The are leftists. They are power seekers who always want more control. They are not “idealists” and there is nothing “moral” about it, their anti-individualism and use of brute force to control people is immoral.
To see how progressive intellectuals accelerated the decline of America beginning in the late 19th century, guided by the statism and collectivism of the European counter Enlightenment and unprincipled “pragmatism”, see Arthur Ekirch’s The Decline of American Liberalism.
Again, MSSCV,you pit the zeal of the individualist versus the greater common good.
Long before the notion of “too big to fail,” corporations were formed to disseminate both financial risk and legal responsibility. Anything goes here in the west in the name of the pursuit of company profits. Meanwhile, millions barely get by, can’t afford to heat their homes, eat a decent diet or receive quality healthcare.
While these 1% billionaire financiers and captains of industry run amok and destroy the world economy, right-wingers push the mentality that “You should be glad you have a job at all, even if it’s for minimum wage.”
This financial inequality cannot and will not last. The only question is what form the transformation will take. As I previously posted, I am NOT an advocate of Marxist socialism because his idea that “we can all own the means of production equally,” was a Utopian pipe dream which did not take into account the hierarchical nature of man.
The difference between you and I is that I would sooner entrust a democratic government elected by popular vote to solve our economic ills rather than a bunch of billionaires who place profits over people. I, however, would rather see government representatives selected as a civic duty (much like jury duty) than the populist lawyer/lobbyist crooks, both Republican and Democrat, who have run our once-great country into the ground.
Do not mis-characterize me as an ideologue. I am a free-thinker who embraces global philosophy and metaphysics as much as economic systems. This is the progressivism that intellectuals like Moynihan sorely lacked.
There is no such thing as a “common good” apart from the good of individuals, and no excuse to sacrifice individuals to your collective on behalf of it. The collective is not an entity, it is an abstraction referring only to individual people in some relationship. Only individuals exist and only individuals think, choose, and act, and suffer the consequences of brute force used against them. It should not even be necessary to refer to “individuals” in any discussion of the problems that statism is causing for real people trying to live here on earth. The emphasis becomes necessary when “intellectual” ideologues start throwing around terms like the “common good” as an excuse to sacrifice real people to some collectivist ideology.
Spare us the obscure “metaphysical” poetry. Your “free thinking” is an echo of the worst of centuries of fallacies “global philosophy” irrationally bundled into your far left ideology that you seek to physically impose through your “hierarchy” of commanders.
Poetry??? ROFL!! Yeah, metaphysics are about POETRY. You are a hoot buddy!
No one said “metaphysics” is”about” poetry. Your obscure posts invoking mystical metaphysics are written no better than bad, meaningless poetry.
I could not bear to read your entire diatribe, however, I will say that I personally started out with nothing…I, and my spouse, worked incredibly hard and now are living a comfortable life. Not rich…not poor. I can tell you that the last thing I want is to give my money to people like you. Individuals that think that they have a right to live as comfortably as I do off of the money that people like me have earned. That money which you have no problem taking from us even though you have done nothing to earn it. I have no problem helping people who are trying to help themselves but I do have a problem with, and will always resist helping, those whose greatest accomplishment is to stand on a soapbox and scream about the evils of people who have things because THEY EARNED THEM. Corporations and the wealthy are not the problem in this country…big and all powerful government is…and what you propose is to give more power to the government and less power to the people. As Ronald Reagan said, “Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.”
Diatribe?? Okay, here comes the dreaded ad hominem.
Hate to give you the newsflash but…MOST people work hard. But many, many people will NEVER be successful. While I admire that you can boast of being “self-made,” for most people SURVIVAL ITSELF is sufficient incentive. But mortgages are being foreclosed, people are dying due to inadequate medical insurance and the middle-class, once the working backbone of this country, are buckling under the weight of unemployment, recession, and personal financial debt. What of them? Have they not EARNED the right to better? For every successful entrepreneur, there are thousands who are barely surviving. You must be in the vanguard of the wealthy or the wealthy wannabes, or you wouldn’t be defending GOP values. The rest of us are sick of Bush-Cheney-Rove-Romney-Santorum-Gingrich-Palin-Bachmann-Limbaugh and whatever other bozo they put forth to offer lip service to a way of life that should have died in the last century.
You should save your breath if you think you can cow me with your “intellect”. I am not wealthy nor do I aspire to be. My life is good because my spouse and I have made it that way. I do not intend to give my hard earned dollars to those who do nothing but covet them. I will be charitable to those who may be having a hard time of things but still want to work hard and earn their way…not just take for no other reason but that they think they have a right to. That people think they have a right to others’ money is a fundamental problem of this society. The government being the greatest offender.
You speak for many. You not only worked hard, you used your head to decide how to apply it. It was your use of your mind and your focused dedication to consistently choose actions that were to your long range benefit that led to whatever level of success you achieved, not mindless ‘physical labor’ that this clown thinks makes everyone entitled to the results of your efforts. You took intelligent and different actions than those who did not achieve what you did. That makes you far more intellectual than some loony “intellectual” spouting German metaphysics as an excuse for dictatorial controls through the “hierarchy” he demands.
I certainly disagee that most people work very hard. 0% of the middle class wotk 40 hours a week, never give anything extra to their employer, certainly never get enough gumption to start a small buisness, even a part-time one. Lots of TV watching, trips to Disneyland and Hollywood Slots. Then social security at 65, move into “senior housing” funded by my tax dollars,finally, to the nursing home on Mainecare, also thanks to the public for taking care of them. Spent too much on a new car every 2 to 4 years and ahouse they couldn’t afford , but never got around to buy long term care insurance.
Sandy, Mr. Koufax, whatever I can not understand your scholarly and overly long posts. I do disagree with yor assertion that most American work very hard.90% do the minimum for their employer. Way too busy going to Hollywood Slots and watching TV to start their own small business, even a part time one. Spend every cent they earn on a too big house, cars every other year, trips to Disneyland. No retirement savings to speak of. Its social security at 65 (pension at 62 if in public service). Off to senior housing subsidized by my tax dollars, then to the nursing home on Mainecare since long term care insurance was to expensive but a snowmobile and atv were not. When their heirs clean out their meager possessions, they curse their greedy employer or governor penguin. Maybe Goerge Bush too.
I hope your only a troll and don’t really believe that BS…
Sadly, he apparently does. He fashions himself as an “intellectual” who thinks he is one of the “elite” who must tell us what to do in his “hierarchy”. His bizarre rhetoric of the clouds gives real intellectuals — those who think about reality — a bad name.
And sadly, MSSCV you are bereft of anything but the fear of exploration, resorting to character disparagement instead of engaging in actual subject analysis.
I’m like Popeye. I am what I am. You don’t have to parade a list of scary adjectives to others when I am right here, ready and willing to elucidate my points. My only agenda is truth, how about you?
Why are you scared of intellectualism? Did someone from the backwoods of Maine call you an egghead? How will you ever learn and grow if you don’t open your mind to the viewpoints of others? Disagreement, while not always pleasant, often leads to the path of enlightenment.
We can discuss consensus reality if you wish, but I think you would find it too scary.
You are no example of an intellectual. You write like a pseudo intellectual megalomaniac rambling obscure diatribes as you pretend to be an “elite” who will help us “learn”. Your contemptuous attitude towards other people’s education and intelligence — as if no one had ever heard of the nonsense you have dredged out of the worst of the history of philosophy — is matched only by your elitist demands to rule us as our alleged superior.
Every dictatorship on earth has been rationalized by such a contempt for the minds of others, who allegedly must be ruled. Your demands for “pragmatic” statist collectivism to be imposed on us by the brute force of government power reveal you to be a power-seeking physical threat to all of us, and that is not an “academic discussion”.
The Greeks are no one to quote from their country is broke and being bailed out, try some other country.
The economic and political freedom of capitalism led to the greatest benefits to people the world has ever seen, reaching levels of prosperity that could not previously be imagined and which is destroyed by statism everywhere that is imposed. Capitalism succeeds because it recognizes the moral necessity of individual freedom of thought and action on behalf of our own lives rather than being suppressed for the collective, or worse, for raw nature. Capitalism is civilization. Civilization is the process for freeing the individual from the control of others.
Nice try, MSSCV. Your model of “individual freedom” pointedly excludes the hierarchical nature of man. Corporatism enslaves the many to line the pockets of the few.
Capitalism is a transactory system based on the valuation of goods and services and the labor needed to produce both. It is the management and dispersal of physical MATERIALISM; as such it is not synonymous in any way with civilization, which the Greeks characterized as “pulling order from chaos.” Metaphysics–including laws, ethics, morals and social mores and macrostructures more accurately constitute mankind’s civilization. In other words, there is more to life than money and the pursuit of it.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing material success and no one “only” “pursues money”.
There is no “model” of “individual freedom”. We are free or not here in
reality whether or not physical force is used against us to prevent us
from peacefully pursuing our own values. Corporations do not
“enslave”.
It doesn’t make any difference whether some become wealthier than
others; others’ success is not taken from those who don’t achieve it,
including, especially, ridiculous “intellectuals” spouting German metaphysics. People obtain material values from what they produce or voluntary exchange — or steal it from someone who did; there is no such thing as “dispersal of physical Materialism”.
The deadly consequences of the long history of statism and collectivism are more than apparent here in reality where individual human beings try to live and pursue their own values. Bizarre allusions to rationalistic “models”, “hierarchical nature of man”, and Greek “order from chaos” are irrelevant. There is no Hegelian World Order. Civilization is not “metaphysics”.
“Koufax’s” rationalistic rhetoric on behalf of extreme left politics is a bizarre anachronism detached from reality. It is the kind of “intellectual” rationalization that led to notorious 20th century totalitarian communism and fascism when “intellectuals” viciously spreading it were loony enough to take it seriously.
You’re a gem, MSSCV. I’m not going to countenance hyperbole such as “Bizarre allusions to rationalistic “models.” If you’re going to pass this off as an “intellectual” discussion, at least try to make sense.
Stop acting scared of rational discourse and metaphysical paradigms which are routinely used as tools to map where we’ve been and where we’re going. Who are you to disparage Kant, Hegel or German metaphysics? Show us that your head is filled with something besides the straw of recalcitrance.
Ludicrous comment of the day: “there is no such thing as “dispersal of physical Materialism.” I think Maslow might disagree. All human beings have need of physical goods and services. The value of these things are manipulated by a top-heavy transactory system (capitalism) which has, at
its basis, the quest for individual personal gain (profit motive) rather than the purpose of benefiting the health and welfare of the populace.
Capitalism is commerce based on opportunism rather than need and merit. Were such financial disparity based in an actual meritocracy (whereby those who work the hardest and deserve the most actually got it) then it would be less egregious to our global civilization. You and I both know that it’s not.
“It doesn’t make any difference whether some become wealthier than others” could well be Mitt Romney’s mantra.
What, like we didn’t notice the tax rate he paid on THIRTY MILLION dollars?? This super Darwinistic worldview of individuality which you and he champion has brought our global society to the brink of disaster.
This isn’t the Golden Age or The American Century or even the post World-War blush of prosperity; this is a fight for the direction the human race must take in years to come. With finite resources worldwide, market-based economies are held hostage to the volatility of political power struggles both here and abroad.
Keynes foresaw the need for federal market regulation to address the growing economic disparity which marked most of the twentieth century. Lifting many of these practices under Bush-Cheney (especially futures speculation) produced financial consequences still being felt, even AFTER Obama bailed out the banks and automakers at our expense.
That trillion dollars could have and should have been returned to the American people. Instead of artificially propping up the economy in the short term, Americans would have been able to pay off their mortgages, put their kids through college and invest in the infrastructure of our nation. Instead, the Republicrats (BOTH parties in collusion) squandered it with the unlikely (and anti-capitalistic) notion of “too big to fail.” We can’t have it both ways, supply-side and socially-responsible.
And here is where you and I diverge. I believe the government should use our tax money for US, not give it to the 1% who destroyed the economy in the first place. So much for trickle down.
Feel free to respond rationally, without alarmist rhetoric. Here in the 21st century most people are sophisticated enough to discuss radical politics. Really.
“Rational discussion” begins with clarity of thought about reality, it does not require or permit your free-floating “academic” “paradigms” and “models” borrowed out of pre-20th century rationalistic German mystical metaphysics and mixed with rambling Marxist slogans and cliches strung together in leftist diatribes to “map where we’re going”.
Kant, Hegel and the rest of the European counter Enlightenment were the opposite of the individualistic, pro individual pursuit of happiness in life on earth, pro political and economic freedom ideals on which this country was founded. German philosophy was mystical and irrational, with a ‘morality’ of duty and sacrifice and a politics of collectivism and statism. Anyone who accepts that and tries to live by it would need an “elite” to tell him what to think and do because he would no longer be able to function as a rational human being focused on reality in his life.
Who am I to “disparage Kant, Hegel or German metaphysics?” The same person who “disparages”, i.e., categorically rejects, the rest of your command and control “hierarchy” of “elites” you are out to forcibly impose on us to tell us what to think and do with your “pragmatic” socialist dictatorship.
Everyone has a right to renounce that and its mystical pseudo-intellectual base that you are trying to exploit to intellectually intimidate people with your “muddy waters look deep” approach to being an “intellectual”. The better approach is “the emperor has not clothes” and “don’t bother to examine a folly, just ask what it’s intended to accomplish”.
So Dude. You’re scared of “statism” (what are you a Federalist? Libertarian?) elitism (leadership by the best and brightest) and collectivism (society and the common good versus individual rights). Why? Even democratic republics have centralized governments. Elitists often excel at their chosen avocations. And collectivism–the social relationships of groups and individuals– are a fact of life.
You seem particularly scared of Germany’s history. Believe me, I also fear the fascism I am seeing on the political margins of our country (yes, the Tea Party, who spin their plans under the guise of super-patriotism.)
Also, let’s clarify the meaning of “hierarchical.” It sounds great to say “All men are created equal,” but we know better. People are born into differing socioeconomic circumstances and with differing abilities, mental and physical. Under man’s “Natural” law, there are always those who THINK they are better as well as those who actually ARE better in terms of abilities. A few souls in any and every field of endeavor are truly gifted, whether musician, athlete, politician or captain of industry. This is what I mean when I reference “hierarchies” and this is why Marxist socialism will never work or exist outside of a conceptual political science. We are simply not all equal in our abilities.
The folks on here who are hard-working and successful resent those who are clearly neither. And yet both kinds of individual co-exist. This is reality. In our pluralistic American culture, both have votes that count equally. The question is, how are both to be represented and by whom?
A society that is supposed to be as progressive as the United States doesn’t even hold a candle to the political diversification of continental Europe. In addition to a Democratic and Republican party, we should also have viable Independent, Labor and Green parties. The body politik is far more diversified than the Democrats versus the Republicans or the liberals versus the conservatives. The effect of information technology on the mass media has made for a better-educated electorate. Unfortunately, given the polarization caused by the recent recession and foreign wars, this electorate is more frustrated than ever. This next presidential election will be a referendum on our American SYSTEM of government.
When one figures that between the U.S. House, Senate and Presidential administration a nation of 300 million is governed by a Rich Man’s Club of about 1,000 leaders (mostly white, male, moneyed – 250K+) then the supposition of true representative democracy is ludicrous. Add in the fact that
6-8 per cent of the population owns or controls 94-96 per cent of the nation’s wealth, then you can see how the function of our federal government has been co-opted by a relative handful of uber rich men!
Washington does not serve us, but we them. And these are not our values. Not mine. Not yours. We should have the right to re-define our national values, and do it outside the auspices of the Democratic and Republican parties if we so choose.
Koufax8: “So Dude. You’re scared of ‘statism’ (what are you a Federalist? Libertarian?) elitism (leadership by the best and brightest) and collectivism (society and the common good versus individual rights). Why? Even democratic republics have centralized governments.”
Statism means that government controls the people rather than protecting the right of the individual to peaceably live his own life. The American system constitutionally limited the power of government predominantly to its proper role and established balance of powers making it harder for one branch or level to gain too much power. It did not say there can’t be a national government.
Koufax8 wants government to control people. He boasted that he is a “pragmatic socialist” who wants to redistribute other people’s private property for “the common good”.
Now he mocks and taunts those who reject his imposition as ‘so dude, you’re scared’. People are more than frightened, they are in revolt against progressive statism.
Koufax8: “Elitists often excel at their chosen avocations.”
Koufax8 is equivocating between political elitists who think they are better than their subjects and entitled to rule them, versus the “elite” with genuine productive accomplishment, which is the opposite of rule by force.
koufax8 previously wrote “I favor elitism (those most qualified by knowledge, intent and expertise should make decisions for those who know nothing, don’t care and don’t participate) over populism (majority rules).” Rule by an “elite” and rule by the mob is a false alternative, no one should “ruling”. His sophistry is intended to smuggle in submission to government power in the name of respect for accomplishment.
Koufax8: “And collectivism–the social relationships of groups and individuals– are a fact of life.”
Collectivism is regarding the individual as subservient to the group, in politics meaning by government force. It does not mean “there are social relationships”. That we live among other people does not imply tribalist submission.
Koufax8: “You seem particularly scared of Germany’s history. Believe me, I also fear the fascism I am seeing on the political margins of our country (yes, the Tea Party, who spin their plans under the guise of super-patriotism.)”
Fascism is the form of socialism in which private property is nominally allowed but which is in fact controlled by government, inevitably in a political mixing of private interests with government physical power. Communism and German National Socialism (Nazism) both rose out of the 19th century German political culture and philosophy of statism and collectivism, and the anti-individualist mysticism and sacrifice underlying it, all espoused in the European counter-Enligtenment.
The “tea party” isn’t “spinning” anything as “patriotism” and isn’t on “the fringes”. The tea party movement favors the rights of the individual against government rule. Progressivism has been giving us fascism with communist rhetoric. Koufax8 is smearing the tea party as “fascist”, which is the opposite of the freedom it stands for against his ideology.
Koufax8: “Also, let’s clarify the meaning of ‘hierarchical.’ It sounds great to say ‘All men are created equal,’ but we know better. People are born into differing socioeconomic circumstances and with differing abilities, mental and physical. Under man’s ‘Natural’ law, there are always those who THINK they are better as well as those who actually ARE better in terms of abilities…”
In the context of the American system of government, all men created equal meant having equal rights before the law because by nature we have the same natural rights as human beings regardless of ability or choices of how to live. That was what was meant by the “natural law” and “natural rights” as appealed to in the founding of America.
It did not mean Marxist egalitarianism and it did not mean that everyone is the same or should be. Recognizing that individuals have different abilities and make different choices resulting in different accomplishment in different realms does not mean that some are entitled to rule others in a hierachy of “elites” because they are “better”, or who like Koufax8 “think they are better”.
Every human being by nature must use his rational faculty to think and guide his actions in order to live; every normal human being is capable of that and must be left politically free to do so. The right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness by every individual for his own life is the diametric opposite of collectivist demands for sacrifice to the group in both morality and politics.
Yet that is the oppressive tribalist reversion we are getting under government imposition to live for a supposed “common good” under collectivism and statism. It is pushed mostly by progressive “pragmatic socialism” imposing more and more social controls in the name of more and more sacrifice to the group, and motivated by what Koufax8 puts as “The concepts of the ‘greater good,’ the ‘common good’ and the ‘public good’ are central to my ideological beliefs”.
Koufax8: “The folks on here who are hard-working and successful resent those who are clearly neither…”
Normal people do not “resent” those regarded as in different “classes” or with different abilities and accomplishment. They justifiably resent those who living off their efforts and those in government who are taking it — and the “intellectuals” egging it on.
Koufax8: “A society that is supposed to be as progressive as the United States doesn’t even hold a candle to the political diversification of continental Europe. In addition to a Democratic and Republican party, we should also have viable Independent, Labor and Green parties…”
America is not “supposed to be progressive” and is not inferior to Europe. For the most part it has been far better. We are not “supposed to” have political paraties vying for power over us on behalf of more collectivism and statism, all violating the rights of the individual in different overlapping ways. The dog-eat-dog pressure group warfare of welfare statism, with competing groups trying to exploit government power for their own ends at everyone else’s expense, has been destroying Maine and the rest of the country. No one benefits from it except for the political class endorsing and running it.
Koufax8: “… We should have the right to re-define our national values, and do it outside the auspices of the Democratic and Republican parties if we so choose.”
Progressive socialists have no “right” to redefine America and impose collectivist “national values” on the rest of us.
Koufax8: “So Dude. You’re scared of ‘statism’ (what are you a Federalist? Libertarian?) elitism (leadership by the best and brightest) and collectivism (society and the common good versus individual rights). Why? Even democratic republics have centralized governments.”
Statism means that government controls the people rather than protecting the right of the individual to peaceably live his own life. The American system constitutionally limited the power of government predominantly to its proper role and established balance of powers making it harder for one branch or level to gain too much power. It did not say there can’t be a national government.
Koufax8 wants government to control people. He boasted that he is a “pragmatic socialist” who wants to redistribute other people’s private property for “the common good”.
Now he mocks and taunts those who reject his imposition as ‘so dude, you’re scared’. People are more than frightened, they are in revolt against progressive statism.
Koufax8: “Elitists often excel at their chosen avocations.”
Koufax8 is equivocating between political elitists who think they are better than their subjects and entitled to rule them, versus the “elite” with genuine productive accomplishment, which is the opposite of rule by force.
koufax8 previously wrote “I favor elitism (those most qualified by knowledge, intent and expertise should make decisions for those who know nothing, don’t care and don’t participate) over populism (majority rules).” Rule by an “elite” and rule by the mob is a false alternative, no one should “ruling”. His sophistry is intended to smuggle in submission to government power in the name of respect for accomplishment.
Koufax8: “And collectivism–the social relationships of groups and individuals– are a fact of life.”
Collectivism is regarding the individual as subservient to the group, in politics meaning by government force. It does not mean “there are social relationships”. That we live among other people does not imply tribalist submission.
Koufax8: “You seem particularly scared of Germany’s history. Believe me, I also fear the fascism I am seeing on the political margins of our country (yes, the Tea Party, who spin their plans under the guise of super-patriotism.)”
Fascism is the form of socialism in which private property is nominally allowed but which is in fact controlled by government, inevitably in a political mixing of private interests with government physical power. Communism and German National Socialism (Nazism) both rose out of the 19th century German political culture and philosophy of statism and collectivism, and the anti-individualist mysticism and sacrifice underlying it, all espoused in the European counter-Enligtenment.
The “tea party” isn’t “spinning” anything as “patriotism” and isn’t on “the fringes”. The tea party movement favors the rights of the individual against government rule. Progressivism has been giving us fascism with communist rhetoric. Koufax8 is smearing the tea party as “fascist”, which is the opposite of the freedom it stands for against his ideology.
Koufax8: “Also, let’s clarify the meaning of ‘hierarchical.’ It sounds great to say ‘All men are created equal,’ but we know better. People are born into differing socioeconomic circumstances and with differing abilities, mental and physical. Under man’s ‘Natural’ law, there are always those who THINK they are better as well as those who actually ARE better in terms of abilities…”
In the context of the American system of government, all men created equal meant having equal rights before the law because by nature we have the same natural rights as human beings regardless of ability or choices of how to live. That was what was meant by the “natural law” and “natural rights” as appealed to in the founding of America.
It did not mean Marxist egalitarianism and it did not mean that everyone is the same or should be. Recognizing that individuals have different abilities and make different choices resulting in different accomplishment in different realms does not mean that some are entitled to rule others in a hierachy of “elites” because they are “better”, or who like Koufax8 “think they are better”.
Every human being by nature must use his rational faculty to think and guide his actions in order to live; every normal human being is capable of that and must be left politically free to do so. The right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness by every individual for his own life is the diametric opposite of collectivist demands for sacrifice to the group in both morality and politics.
Yet that is the oppressive tribalist reversion we are getting under government imposition to live for a supposed “common good” under collectivism and statism. It is pushed mostly by progressive “pragmatic socialism” imposing more and more social controls in the name of more and more sacrifice to the group, and motivated by what Koufax8 puts as “The concepts of the ‘greater good,’ the ‘common good’ and the ‘public good’ are central to my ideological beliefs”.
Koufax8: “The folks on here who are hard-working and successful resent those who are clearly neither…”
Normal people do not “resent” those regarded as in different “classes” or with different abilities and accomplishment. They justifiably resent those who living off their efforts and those in government who are taking it — and the “intellectuals” egging it on.
Koufax8: “A society that is supposed to be as progressive as the United States doesn’t even hold a candle to the political diversification of continental Europe. In addition to a Democratic and Republican party, we should also have viable Independent, Labor and Green parties…”
America is not “supposed to be progressive” and is not inferior to Europe. For the most part it has been far better. We are not “supposed to” have political paraties vying for power over us on behalf of more collectivism and statism, all violating the rights of the individual in different overlapping ways. The dog-eat-dog pressure group warfare of welfare statism, with competing groups trying to exploit government power for their own ends at everyone else’s expense, has been destroying Maine and the rest of the country. No one benefits from it except for the political class endorsing and running it.
Koufax8: “… We should have the right to re-define our national values, and do it outside the auspices of the Democratic and Republican parties if we so choose.”
Progressive socialists have no “right” to redefine America and impose collectivist “national values” on the rest of us.
Okay man. I’m out. Your continual hostility mystifies me. Instead of exploring the dynamics of the Plum Creek discussion (the role of governments, corporations and groups of voters and citizens) you are more intent on demonizing me because my opinions and beliefs differ from yours. Your incessant name-calling (“elitist,”” intellectual” “statist” etc.) really serves no purpose other than to obfuscate our public discussion for others. As I previously mentioned, I am forthright, seeking truth in all things. Sometimes truth is revealed by the discussion of differences.
Your statement
“Rational discussion” …does not require or permit your free-floating “academic” “paradigms” and
“models” ”
Tells me all I need to know. Perhaps you were seeking a more academic tenor, whereas I have tried to frame these debates as a philosphical discussion. Your defining the terms of “rational discussion” pretty much excludes philosophy, as philosophy seeks to distill the meaning, purpose and significance of our shared existential reality. Good luck with this approach.
koufax8 has repeatedly with condescension and mocking taunts demeaned those who respond to his posts and rejected his self-proclaimed superior “intellectualism”. Anyone can read his posts and see this — and see how little most of what he has written has anything to do with Plum Creek other than as an attempt to murkily and abstractly, together with leftist slogans, justify statism. He formulated this as what he calls “pragmatic socialism” to “redistribute wealth” on behalf of avowed collectivism demanding people live for a supposed “common good” rather than their own lives. I have called for “rational discussion” that must be reality-based with “clarity of thought” as opposed to rationalistic academic jargon which he now claims is to “seek to distill the meaning, purpose and significance of our shared existential reality” through “paradigms” and “models”. That kind of nonsense is how self-avowed “intellectuals” wind up demanding elitist control under socialism.
I most certainly do not exclude “philosophy”, which is particularly important to political policy and the nature of government, but I don’t equate principled discussion with his premises of 18th and 19th century German metaphysics and the intellectual dead end of unprincipled ends justifies the means “pragmatism” to which it led.
Why do you just repeat soundbites. Do you have an actual thought on your own? Sad.
I think he does, but they are not original thoughts or applications, and it’s a rationalistic, “academic” way of thinking that is alien to those who use their heads to live and work confronting real problems with real solutions.
The 1% who destroyed the economy in the first place?! The people who are destroying the economy are the ones who are getting free stuff…free housing…free food…free drugs…free healthcare…free rides to the methadone clinics. Oh wait…those things are not really free…we who work and must give our money to the government, so the government can give the “under-privileged” “free” stuff are paying for it. I have an idea…you and your socialist…or progressive (or whatever you call yourselves) friends should all get together…pool all of your resources and go live on a little island somewhere. That way the only harm you are doing is to yourselves. Don’t forget to bring the tent and sleeping bags that you helped yourself to at the last “occupy” demonstration….and please do not complain when someone takes them from you…oops…I mean when you have to share them.
Greeks are you really going to quot them, have you seen their country, as all the other countries bail them out, if there is more to life then money, why weer the people of Greece protesting and riots in the streets because the Govt can not afford to pay out all the benefits they provide. Their social plan does not work.
7 socialists like that comment????
Ooooooh…SOCIALISTS!!! Who was your boogie man before you learned that word? Try opening a book. Better yet, don’t look into shared wealth, stay in the dark and be the good capitalist soldier that your Republican fathers have programmed you to be.
“Socialism” is a concept identifying a form of collectivist government coercion that normal people reject for good reason, not a “boogie man”. People know what socialism and its history are and reject it accordingly, they are not “programmed”. Contrary to the fallacious claims of Marxist economic determinism people are not “inevitably determined” to think what they think because of their “economic class” and neither is your imposition of statism “inevitable”.
Your unprincipled “pragmatic” statism seizing other people’s property is morally despicable. You have been repudiated because of your own explicit statements. Behind all the “metaphysical” gibberish is the meaning in reality to real people: “koufax8: “I am more a pragmatist than a Statist and embrace socialism as an inevitable redistribution of private wealth.”. Government based on “pragmatic” statism is statism.
What are you babbling about? “Seizing other people’s property?” WTF? And why are you so scared of the “State?” Dude, you’ve got issues.
Koufax8 stated: “I am more a pragmatist than a Statist and embrace socialism as an inevitable redistribution of private wealth.” That is his own statement advocating seizing other people’s property. It is inherent in socialism.
Help me out here. How is this different from hordes of flag draped snow machine- atv- mobs proclaiming their god given rights to use other peoples land for their own purposes. Others pay the taxes and these mechanized squatters use it. Whats that if not “inherent socialism”?
Well said, just a little to factual and challenging for them.
Try living in Cuba, and see if you think Capitalism is so bad, look up a guy called the Naked Cowboy, who started playing a guitar on the city streets of NYC over 10 years ago in his underwear, now he is rich, and owns a few different business, that is Capitalism at its best, take an idea try it, it either works or it does not. Try that in Cuba go to jail.
Plum Creek will continue to harvest their lands.. Conserving 400K acres of land means, that they will never develop it.. Sounds like a sweet deal
Buy the land and have it stand.
Prosperity is a human value. Forced wilderness preservation for nature worship at the expense of people is the opposite of an economy and prosperity for people.
Prosperity is a result-oriented goal, not a value. The question is, should an individual feel that they have the RIGHT to pursue prosperity. Our Founding Fathers agreed that they do. But the trade guilds of their time were not even a shadow of the monolithic multinational corporations that control the world today.
Does Plum Creek have the right to pursue company profits in Maine? Absoultely. Do they have the right to determine land usage and quality of life in the Millinocket area for decades to come? Many Maine citizens say NO! Again, there is more to life than profits for the few, especially those taken at the expense of everyone else.
A value is a ‘result-oriented goal’. We act to achieve values and every individual has a right to do so. “Corporations” do not “control the world”. The people at Plum Creek are not “taking” anything from anyone, in fact that they been forced to give up hundreds of thousands of acres as exactions to NGOs like the Nature Conservancy in collusion with government. You don’t own Plum Creek’s land. You do not have a right to control everything around you.
This is wonderful news for the whole region.
No it’s not. That whole region will get five years of construction, building second homes for out-of-staters, and their local economies will be based on construction; then, after all the homes are built, the boom will turn to bust.
Like an addict needing another hint, the region will ask for more construction easements to keep their economies growing.
The Moosehead Lake Region, the jewel of Maine, soon will become the Lake Winnipesaukee of Maine.
No it won’t. We’ll take care of our jewel, like we always have. We’ve had years of contruction already, building second homes (you would be surprised by the number of locals who also have “second homes”, or as we call the, CAMPS, here.
Gimme a break. Number of Locals with last names as: Muzzy, Folsom, Hilton, you know, the people who have Greenville under their thumbs.
The back lots at First Roach Pond were $80,000. How much do you think a lot on Moosehead Lake is going to cost, $400,000+. Yeah, the average Mainer is going to be able to afford that? Greenville can’t even get Cafloan to open Moose Mountain for the winter. How much business revenue has been lost in the last decade due to that debacle? Can’t even get Muzzy to put the by-pass in for the logging trucks that come barrelling down Pritham. Bet that helps the downtown business community. Half the restaurants – and a majority of Bed & Breakfasts – are for sale in Greenville. Not exactly going to draw the jet-set, high-end crowd up for the week-end with Max Folsom running the airport into the ground.
Plum Creek is not Greenville’s economic savior. They have been lying to the town ever since they bought the land from SAPPI. Their only concern is making money for their investors.
Um..the Murrays have a camp, the Bretons, the Richards, the Chasses, the Lavignes, the Gilberts, just off the top of my head…No, we’re not going to buy those lots, we don’t need to, we have our homes and camps…Greenville under their thumbs? Because they own property? One thing I can say about the people who “have” in Greenville, they are always more than willing to give.
And I’M not looking for a savior. But I will welcome change. What is so wrong with being positive?
You aren’t really so short-sighted that you’re naming local grievances here, are you? You should probably find less public way to address your grievance – like maybe walk across the Street and have a conversation with Muzzy. Good lord.
The development of this State is a great thing. Maine needs an infusion of money from Out-of-Stater’s – even though that’s hard for the locals to swallow. I’ve lived in enough New England States to know that ‘locals’ everywhere are all the same. They all worry about outsiders, they all fear ‘flat-landers’ (which I think is funny in Maine, since this State is the flattest in New England) and they all claim to own the franchise on Maple Syrup. Oh, and they all complain about people who are from somewhere else.
… and unfortunately for them, they all have to read your self agrandizing here on every subject you think you know something about and plenty you prove you don’t. Where abouts do you live because I’m thinking just a handful of those huge windturbines in close proximity to you would light up all of the Northeast!
That would be me you are referring to. Maine is flat but only east of I 95 which ironically is where most of the flatlanders live !
I’d settle for a North Conway without the shopping.
Go to Greenville and take a look around, the town relies on outside sources to pros-pure and grow! This winter hit home very hard with very little snow and the economy got hit even harder. More people need to be aware and familiarize themselves with the beautiful Moosehead Lake, this will only help the economy of the surrounding areas. This is great news, all local businesses and construction workers will be back in the working force, creating more jobs and less unemployment, congrats Plum Creek!
Yeah, for how long. Make the lake a National Recreation Area then watch how “helpful” it will be to the local economy. At least the permancy of a national distinction is alot better than the temporary economic bump. I hope the President invokes the Antiquies Act on the area before he gets out of office in 2016. Then both the Sportsman and the Enviornmentalist will have what they want. Perservation of Tradition and Environment.
I’ve noticed around here that the only people who are happy with the Greenville status quo are the ones who own their piece of heaven and don’t want to share. The Moosehead Lake area can handle more visitors. It’s long winters will naturally curb overpopulation by humankind.
Long winters won’t curb over population, have you been to parts of Canada, it’ll be the lack of “things” to do that keep people as seasonal folk. I hear that all the time from people that they don’t want to live in Maine because of the winter, yet year after year, they are still here. Once in a while one of them will leave for a few weeks to go some where warm, but they come back, they always do.
The area can handle more visitors. The fish and wildlife can’t. If you’ve been in the area for long enough, you’ve seen what has already happened. This won’t help.
Any changes in our fish and wildlife can mostly be attributed to state management. Want more deer? Give us a coyote bounty.
Right. That should change everything. Maybe you need a history lesson on the awfulness of humanity. Maybe I’m crazy, but I would like to be able to hunt and fly fish for longer than the next decade.
The majority of the people to come dont hunt or fish.
Thanks Roxanne !
Maybe we can start a Maine Bike week and bring in the $$$ here instead of NH.
Calais during the 4 th of July week ! Try it ! Already in the works.
Don’t knock Winnipesaukee , clean water ,plenty of good fishing , plenty of year round work , plenty of money……and only 2 hrs away from the big city !
… and just how many days did you spend in the Moosehead region this past year? Probably “0”! Like you know what’s best for that region. What a joke.
The late great Maine Woods, after all their absorbed historical insults they’re about to be done in, not by loggers, not by hunters, not by fishers or canoeists, but by housing developments and four lane road builders. But there will be jobs and more jobs aplenty: someone has to dig the wells, the septic systems, build the spas and bars, someone has to put up those gates and “members only” signs – lots of “members only” signs. It might be work for some of the local peasantry who, once things are in place will be ever available for domestic service. Wow, just like old Kineo Resort days, the lakeside lodge days, except these resorts will be little pleasure palaces plastered all over the place. Welcome to gated America.
Actually, Plum Creek is guarenteeing access to all of their lands–no gates on private roads or even on the boat launches at the resorts–as part of their concept plan. There was a ton and back of forth in developing the concept plan.
Access to all of their lands for all uses. Take heed Roxanne.
rriiiggghhhtttttttt…
Yep. Unlike Roxanne, as my friend offthegrid points out, Plum Creek worked with the local community to come up with an acceptable solution to issues like access and land use.
Yeah, after they realized their initial plan – not conserving the 400,000 acres – got nixed by residents of the area.
I thought it was funny a couple of years ago when some anti-Plum Creek people took a picture of Moosehead that was with their acticle. The only place that picture could have been taken from was a hillside on Plum Creek land, accessed by Plum Creek roads. My family has traversed
Plum Creek (Scott Paper) roads for years, exploring miles of well kept roads. We can still do that. I’m hoping a developer will build a destination resort, maybe my kids can come back to their home town for jobs (and not just service jobs). Summer jobs for our teens? Heaven!!!
What four lane road in the woods of Piscataquis County are you referring to?
Kind of like what Quimby is doing with her gates…………
There is quite a lot of real estate for sale now around Moosehead. So adding 821 lots and 1,200 housing units doesn’t seem to make sense.
It will be interesting to see what happens… will Plum creek even want to build? the economy and markets are different than when this was proposed. It’s a 30-year plan, though.
It’s a different Market$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Your right, it is totally different.
Being allowed to build on you own property seems to be a new concept to some…
That is exactly what we said when LURC told us we couldn’t build in 1972.
Yeah, just like the property rights of the person who wants to donate land to the National Park Service.
There is no “property right” to change the form of government in Maine by bringing in the Federal government to permanently obliterate property rights throughout an entire area. No one has a right to do that. Quimby is trying to exploit the real estate market to politically destroy property rights. That is not a “donation”; she is trying to buy public policy to impose her 60s counterculture ideology through the force of government.
Quimby: “To me, ownership and private property were the beginning of the end in this country. Once the Europeans came in, drawing lines and dividing things up, things started getting exploited and overconsumed. But a park takes away the whole issue of ownership. It’s off the table; we all own it and we all share it. It’s so democratic.”
Headline!!! The Park Service doesn’t want Quimby’s Land.!!!!
Please Roxanne , stop it !
NEWSFLASH…we don’t care if she keeps it. We just don’t want a National Park. Last time I checked, Americans have a right to say what land becomes a Park and what land does not.
Maine is broke and the majority of posters want spending priorities, but whenever there is development they scream it shouldn’t happen. Plum Creek owns the land and unless you want Maine to buy it they can do what they want within the law. I can’t afford to live there and actually don’t want to, however I do prefer that those whom do are gated in!
That’s the whole point. How can we make it possible for the next generation from the Moosehead Lake region to actually be able to choose to live and work there? Everyone has different opinions about what effect this plan will have on the region’s economy & demographics. But how can we stand by and let the town dissolve? They are barely holding on to their school and their hospital, as it stands.
Plum Creek isn’t going to build anything. Their goal as stated from day one is to sell the rezoned parcels to developers, who then have to go to the LURC to get their individual development plans approved, find financing, build out and sell the various projects. There are developers all around Moosehead Lake now that are trying to sell lots, houses, etc. with very little luck. By the time anything starts popping from this rezoning deal, I seriously doubt it will have a major impact on anyone or anything in the region.
Well, all that land will be conserved.
I totally agree.
Good news! ‘Bout friggin’ time!
Yes we are turning Maine into New Jersey. Great News!
It is not, but would still be better than North Korea kept in “Darkness”.
Last time I checked, New Jersey was able to pay it’s bills and didn’t rank among the top five poorest States in the Country. They have a lot to teach us about taking care of our own business, as sad as that is. New Jersey is not waiting for Mainer’s to come save it. Maine is.
Last time I checked, New Jersey was able to pay it’s bills and didn’t rank among the top five poorest States in the Country.
Have you ever lived in NJ…….check their property tax for one.
BRAVO, JohnPHocks.
THANK YOU for this very SIMPLE, realistic, truth.
Call someplace “paradise”, kiss it good-bye! – Don Henley
Love Don’s music.
Can’t stand his hollywood politics.
Like most from the Hollyweird industry, just one step up from court jester far as I’m concerned.
Yeah, that’s rich. It’s not the message, it’s the messenger.
It’s much worse than “jester”; he has put a lot of money into radical causes destroying private property rights. He’s a Thoreau fanatic.
… and I’m quite sure he’s very concerned about your opinion of him!
Or how about, Judy Collins’ “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot….”
There goes the neighborhood! Now all the Moosehead Lake area needs is to have the lake surrounded by 50 story tall wind turbines …that would complete the transformation. God help us.
Elect King as the senator, and you might get ur wish
That’s Joni Mitchell. Still a great point…
Amen. The town needs a population that can support the services or they are going to loose them. There are good people up here, great people, it is too bad a bunch of tree huggers that don’t own anything have been able to slow down the process. Now they can go occupy a park and whine about some other rich guy or cause they don’t support. Sad bunch of people.
There goes the neighborhood. Plum Creek on one side and Roxanne Quimby on the other.
Do you live in the neighborhood?
I meant the whole damn state.
Couldn’t tell.
Finally! Hopefully the good folks of Greenville will some light coming from the end of the tunnel !
Yeah, they’ll be the tail lights of out-of-staters heading down to lower New England after Labor Day.
So? The best of both worlds for us.
I’m not sure that some of the people contributing remarks here understand the area. Greenville is a small service center. We need people to use our hospital to keep it open, to have those jobs. We need every single student, yes, children of those people working in “service” (or known these days as hospitality) jobs. Surrounding communities, where some of these “fancy homes to out of staters” are, share the cost burden of running our police and fire department, and hopefully our transfer station. We’ve seen development around here for years and to me the homes nestled in wooded areas with colors that blend in are a lot less offensive than some of the homes along main street. The people who retire here, generally are great people who bring many skills and some even money to our library, cultural events, etc. Again, we are not ignorant people who need to be protected by any of you. We can think, we like to work, we help each other out, and we are here because we want to be. You all should be so lucky.
More time should be spent listening to local people and less time from people from away. Liberals criticize western explorers/industrialists for going into outback areas in other countries claiming the outback folks are naive. But when outback folks (in this case Greenville) in America speak, the liberals don’t want to hear it. This is true double-speak and it is the Progressive ideology of hypocrisy – the true enemy of freedom.
NO…The snowsleds will be there for the winter ! Unlike what Restore / Quimby’s plan is !!
That sound you just heard was all the heads exploding at NRCM and Maine Audubon. Don’t you just love the smell of fresh, unused brains in the spring air?
DANG !
I wish I’d said that.
What a unique concept.
You buy a piece of land and own it free of all encumbrances and you can actually build on it. Amazing work.
A long time ago come a man on a track
Walkin’ thirty miles with a sack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness
Built a cabin and a winter store
He ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
The other travellers came walking down the track
They never went further, no, they never went back
Then came the churches, then came the schools
Then came the lawyers, then came the rules
Then came the trains and the trucks with their load
And the dirty old track was the telegraph road
Yeah, and then came the mills, then came the ore
Then there was the hard times, then there was a war
Telegraph sang a song about the world outside
And the telegraph road got so deep and so wide like a rolling river
My radio says, tonight it’s gonna freeze
People drivin’ home from the factories
Now here comes six lanes of traffic
Three lanes moving slow
Used to like to go to work but they shut it all down
I got a right to go to work, no work here to be found
Yeah and they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap from the seed that’s been sowed
But just believe in me baby, and I’ll get you away
I’m gonna get you out of this darkness and into the day
From all these rivers of headlights, from these river of rain
From the anger that lives on the streets with these names
‘Cause I’ve run every red light on memory lane
I’ve seen desperation explode into flames
And I don’t wanna see it again
From all of these signs, just sayin’, ‘Sorry but we’re closed’
Down the telegraph road
Copyright: ‘Telegraph road’ – Mark Knopfler, composer
Compare a 363,000-acre conservation deal to the national park proposal acreage. And then we have the property taxes on the development in the area. Another nice thing is wealthy people with second homes want things like mowing and snowplowing done whether they’re staying there or not.
Can we send RESTORE back to Massachusetts now? Send the other groups with them also.
It will take a very LARGE bus.
How about if we put them in canoe’s and have them travel naturally.
Quimby to Dill:
Canoe canoe?
Dill = ultra liberal leftist self seeker who knows what’s best for the rest of us. Quimby= same !
NRCM is a bad organization for Maine – it plays only to get funds and its efforts seek to keep Maine poor and a playground for the rich and retired – who have theirs already – which funds it
NRCM is but one of many enviroterrorist organizations that shake down well to do capitalists for funds.
You should be wishing we had a lot more rich and retired playing here. Go check out some of the “playground” areas in Arizona and Florida. You’ll see some people have jobs as a result and it’s not all minimum wage. These people need health care, auto service, etc.
“And the crowd cheers! ”
Sorry about your luck, Mr. St. Pierre. Perhaps your plan of returning the Maine North Woods back to the way when Australopithecus existed is coming to an end. We can only hope.
Plum Creek is not a developer it is a speculator..
I’ll be very surpirsed if they actually undertake this development themselves. Their usual scheme is to flip the land unchanged except for the greatly improved value of an approved plan…and most often the next buyer does enough lots to mae a huge profit and then spins the rest off to the next owner when they have made their target profit.
Very rare that the end product is a built as a planned and approved completed project.
I’ll be very surprised if the devlopment ever materializes ( and all the hoped for jobs and economic development) but at least the public got a permanent conservationn easement of a large area. Well done on that.
There is a lesson in here..LURC’s Planned Development process which allows development in areas non adjacent to planned deveopment and at variance with zoning and land use codes if it meets certain standards. The lesson is that depending on how much profit there is in the approved plan, we can leverage permamnet protection or huge public benefits in trade. Plum Creek has jusy realized a huge return on their invetsment without having to do do anything…or planning to do anything.
Meanwhile, I hope that from this day forward Plum Creek is paying top dollar in taxes in their newly high valued land and that somehow this works out to the benefit of Mainers who live in the region.
Well, the concept plan just says that the area can be re-zoned and development is possible in the areas where it was proposed (and the conservation portion will be secured). All the additional permits for building, etc. will go back through LURC and will be subject to the same debates that the concept plan was… I agree, no imminent development. It is a 30 year plan, though. Their window for possible development is quite large.
Yes..I am hoping that LURC’s procedure is to not actually change the zoning until the project phase is permitted. Concept plans are a classic toool of speculators.
We have to just hope for the best on this deal, hope LURC survives at all and hope we can build in some creative ways to reconcile profit taking with the public interest.
There once was a group called RESTORE,
Led by a horrible boor.
3.2 million acres they said!
Filling Mainers with dread,
And now Plum Creek has shown them the door!
I bet Quimby / Restore is crying now !!! LMAO
Ridgerunner, Dont be naive. This has been part of the plan all along. NPs need resorts and houselots for development. There not crying they are seeing there dreams come true.
Why is Restore / Quimby fighting it ????
I don’t think that is correct Medway4me. You may want to review Mr. St. Pierre’s and other RESTORE and the NRCM advocates presence at the meetings and money spent to fight the Plum Creek project. You would need to provide a little more evidence toward your statement before legitimately calling someone naive.
Even the elitists need a good place to have a summer home, stay and eat. This is part of the plan for the park. When you got the AMC, TNC, WS and the Forest Aliance all buying easements to protect up to two million acres there is a reason. The corporations are getting a good return and the greenies are going to get what the want.
…
It would be a shame to lose this place to developers and their fair weather friends.
Or you could lose the same land under Restore / Quimby’s plan !!
Go ahead and ask the Guides and Sportsmen if they want development or open land.
I’m guessing the guides would like more “sports” to hire them. It has been a pretty good livelihood for some.
I know a few guides that has and will loss their business because of Quimby / Restore !!
Built it and they will come. And bring the East West this way where it belongs. Good Luck Plum Creek
“Maine’s highest court on Thursday ruled that state regulators followed proper procedures when approving Plum Creek’s historic development plan for the Moosehead Lake region.”
What is a ” historic development plan” ?
Always distrust doublespeak.
Historically, disqusbites (and reviewing your blog records), you may as well have been the model for Orwellian double-speak.
400,000 acre s will be shut off to Mainers Ask Oregon about P lum creek Once they start, there will be no stopping them.
I would rather see Plum Creek do something with it then Restore / Quimby lock it up !!
Ridgerunner, They have know established a 2 million acre conservation easment from the St. John to Baxter to Moosehead. I think they are well passed Quimbys 70,000. There 3.2 million has been accumualting around us for the last 10 years. We will never stop what is coming.
Medway, I’m afraid you’re way off base. The preservationists (RESTORE et al.) looking for wild lands to be returned in Northern Maine do not endorse or support a conservation easement that allows harvesting and hunting. Plain and simple. I recommend you do more research on the issue. Good luck.
Yes this is very good news for the region, the forest and the forest industry.
360,000 acres protected from further development.
Responsible forest /land management and responsible development which will continue to provide jobs for the area in timber harvesting and add to jobs in land development, construction and more.
I read the posts, I hear the news, I follow trends and I look around and ask myself, at what point did we as a country grow so disconnected with the world around us? Everyone wants to talk about the economy. The economy has many friends and many people willing to take a stand when it is down and out. Where are the people out there who care about the environment? Does anyone seem to care that from atop Katahdin on a clear day you might be able to see an 18 hole golf course and new resort on the southeastern shores of Moosehead?
Not to sound insensitive, but I think the loud mouths on tv, the posturing presidential politicians, and the general public rant about the same old thing day in and day out-the economy. Well, we as a society need a good old rant about the environment. People need to realize what large scale development means to the Moosehead ecosystem. What do golf courses, increased traffic, more skidoos, more motor boats, more crowds do to a region that has for the most part evaded such change. I am all for compromise, but why does Maine have to compromise one of the only things going for it- it’s stellar natural landscapes. Wake up America, wake up Maine. Focus on redeveloping and renewing the sagging industries and depressed areas that already exist without bringing down Maine’s brand-the great land.
You have damn good eyesight if you can see a golf course in Greenville from atop of Katahdin !!
The eco freaks won’t allow the renewing or new industry in Maine. Searsport for example, quaddy point another example . There in not a place in this state that some group is not offended by development. Quimby has plenty of land to hike on if the eco freaks want to see a tree of get bitten by bugs.. Enviromental group played their part in the destruction of industry of and in Maine.
Business is business, but would hate to see the whole region become full of resorts and development. More are likely to come, the question is how many?
There are only a finite number of people who will travel the distance. The sky is not falling.
So sad. So, so,. so , sad.
I am bumming in my bummer tent.
Wait and Watch Moosehead turn into Cape Elizabeth and Boothbay Harbor.
So will Medway, Millinocket and Patten, when this is all over.
I own some land in Rockwood and a condo in Greenville. If people don’t have an investment in the area than you have no idea what you are even talking about.
Plum creek selling some land to some toursists is much better economic development then 3 methadone clinics. You want to see a beautiful area destroyed, open a meth clinic, better yet 3.
They don’t want an economy, they want forced wilderness preservation.
I am afraid you are right. Everyone wants to have it both ways. They want to live a secluded life and get hand outs all along the way. Funny, our state and country is starting to realize that if expenses are more than revenue the model doesn’t last forever. I will not pity anyone that has the socialist attitude when it all comes crashing down on them which it will.
Big Brother will not be there to bail them out…oh my, what will they do?
They will bring the whole mess crashing down on us. They will destroy the last of what we have before they will willingly give up their power.
Even the elitists need a good place to have a summer home, stay and eat. This is part of the plan for the park. When you got the AMC, TNC, WS and the forest Aliance all buying easements to protect up to two million acres there is a reason. The corporations are getting a good return and the greenies are going to get what the want.
BDN.
Could you make people that want to comment on this blog pass and IQ test or something? It is your page, you own it and can do whatever you like. Also, why is it that when people write a letter to the BDN they need to verify their identity but on here anyone with a computer, not a brain, can write an opinion. Can you get age verification or something. Most of these uneducated 12 year olds should be asleep. Tonight is a school night for 90% of your posters.
Or, do yourself a favor and CHARGE MONEY for the right to spout such uninformed trash. You would make a lot of money if you charged for the comment section service. You would eliminate many clowns as well.
Please bring it up at the next board meeting.
that would cut out all the neocon wingnuts.
http://rintrah.bandcamp.com/track/plum-creek-warning
Stupid, ruining the beautiful countryside at Moosehead with fancy houses and resort areas. Shame on you Supreme Court. Probably they’ll each get a house for voting in favor of this. Sad.
I commend LURC. Now, let’s abolish them! So Gov. Lepage what do you really want?
LURC…….all of a sudden receives accolades for their work, but yet, the administration has proposed what? To reduce it’s influence, and make land use more accountable to whom?…..the governor.
Seems to me that everyone else is doing the job that is required of them, except this clown; this governor can’t even keep ONE of his campaign promises? “Transparency”- out…..Honesty- out…..increasing education opportunities- out. (his proposal now finally making it to proper consideration is unconstitutional, he also used education funding as leverage during the DHHS crisis…..but oh wait! Now there’s another one!)
LURC did exactly what they were supposed to do, the governor has done the opposite.”