Pennsylvania Wilds Invasion of the Culture Snatchers?
Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
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The Pennsylvania Wilds are working for some but not so much for others, as corporatist elites move in to snatch the culture, remove the people and replace them.
There is something eerily strange taking place out in Northwest Pennsylvania. It appears to be an invasion of culture snatchers who are being paid to take over things from the folks who make a living there. It has the markings of the Rockefeller family’s making of a wilderness for themselves in New York during the early part of the last century. It even has a name; the “Wild Are Working” project. It’s bringing remote workers to places such as tiny Cameron County, The catch is that the work is really elsewhere and the workers appear likely to have no little or no interest in the work that’s really going on there. Indeed, it sure looks like these workers are more interested in making the wilderness than sustaining an economy.
The story begins with this excerpt from the June 4th edition of a local journal called Solomon’s Word:
Wilds are Working project bringing six families to Cameron County during the month of July.
Lily Jones and James Cato both work remotely. Lily is a communications specialist for the Environmental Defense Fund and James is a regional organizer for Mountain Watershed Association. The couple is considering moving to a tight-knit community and plans to use the opportunity to test out living and working in a small town.
Lily wants access to outdoor recreation where she can run a trail in the evening after work or enjoy a backpacking trip without a long drive. The couple also plans to enjoy kayaking either on the Driftwood Branch of the Sinnemahoning Creek or at the George B Stevenson Dam at Sinnemahoning State Park.
A committee operating under the direction of the Cameron County Chamber of Commerce had the task of sifting through 41 applications for the PA Wilds Remote Working project. “The committee focused on those ready to relocate and seeking the opportunity to leave big box stores and strip malls behind,” says chamber director Tina Solak.
It was forwarded to me by a local reader. It immediately raised questions. First, why are two employees of radical anti-growth groups among the first to be invited? Secondly, the article implies there must be incentives involved, so what are they? Thirdly, who is paying and why?
A visit to the Pennsylvania Wilds Are Working webpage and a webinar posted there tells the answer to the second question. The participants get 2-4 weeks of lodging under the program and a “living stipend.” A separate website found here tells us the project is funded by the Ben Franklin Technology Partners through the Appalachian Regional Commission, which is apparently spending a lot of the borrowed money Joe Biden has been wasting, More importantly, though we learn the whole thing is under the aegis of a NGO called the Pennsylvania Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship. It was apparently founded in 2013 or so by a Tataboline Enos, who is still the CEO. It takes in between $1.2 and $1.5 million annually with over half coming from grants.
We don’t know precisely who provided those grants but the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund provided a bit and, coincidentally, it also threw some money at the Mountain Watershed Association, which, of course, is a Heinz Endowments bunch of shills and shows up in the above story. The First Community Foundation also threw some money at the PA Wilds Center, but the rest is hard ti identify without additional research, which we’ll do as time permits.
What really caught our eye, though, were these two excerpts from the Center’s most recent annual report which provides some strong hints as to who is really orchestrating all this and why two radicals get invited to participate. The first one tells us the Conservation Fund is one of the Centers’s funders although no such donations show up in the former’s 2020 and 2021 IRS 990 filings. We also see the EDA, USDA and Richard King Mellon Foundation are involved with two stage entities called simply “Whirley” and “Drinkworks.” Save theme for later, though, because it is the Conservation Fund that is the big gorilla among corporatist elites hoping to make a fortune and a wilderness in Northwest and North Central Pennsylvania. We explained it all in detail five years ago here.
And, if you imagine our supposed “conspiracy theories” aren’t, like so many others, turning out to be true at an ever increasing rate under the Biden, Wolf and now Shapiro Administrations, read this:
Note that Lawrence Seltzer lays out the broad strategy in stark terms; it is transformation from natural resource industries (oil, gas, timber) to an “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” another way of saying he wants to make the region a home for trust-funder potters and other folks who don’t need money or make it elsewhere. Those of you who live and make a living there will have to be content selling Chai tea lattes to Patagonia wearing city people. Timbering may take place by multi-national elitist outfits who will then finance their land acquisitions with phony gifts of development rights, crafting permanent wilderness vacation playgrounds at the expense of ordinary taxpayers who will have to pick up the slack.
Yes, that’s how it works and the Environmental Defense Fund and Mountain Watershed Association soldiers financed by big money NGOs will help the campaign to make it all go smoothly while preaching their new found faux interest in economic development. Like so much today, it’s all fake to the core, but they’ve succeeded in getting locals to invite them in, which is sad but an integral part of the strategy to replace the culture, the people who made it and their futures with yet another face of the “you’ll own nothing and be happy” meme. And, Lawrence Seltzer? Well, he earned $975,792 through the Conservation Fund in 2020. The Pennsylvania Wilds are working extremely well for him, but he wants what you have, too. He’s a culture snatcher.
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