Overview - Property Rights and 'Wise Use'

"Once you've been frightened and made to hate the bogeyman, the successful direct-mail appeal must offer you a way to get revenge against the bogeyman—the payoff for your contribution. The more soul-satisfying the revenge, the better the letter pulls.“

"All this must be dressed up in an appeal that appears to have a high moral tone, but which—without you realizing it—works on your lower emotions." Gottlieb and Arnold are describing environmental direct-mail pitches, but Arnold, in an interview on the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, also tells us that "in direct mail, fear, hate, and revenge go a long way."

(Arnold & Gottlieb, 1993)

So does another time-honored Wise Use tactic—deliberate deception. In June of 1995 Gottlieb conducted a nationwide anti-gun control mass-mailing campaign that was carefully crafted to appear as though it had come from then-Rep. Philip M. Crane (R) of Illinois. The letter came in an envelope bearing a replica of the congressional seal and claimed to be from “the Honorable Philip M. Crane, Member of Congress” and even bore his signature. Congressman Crane had not sent, or authorized the letter, whose return address was Bellevue, WA, not Illinois. Such tactics not uncommon for Wise Use fronts. In 1984 Gottlieb was convicted of $17,000 worth of income tax fraud and served 10 months in a federal work release program (Halpin & de Armond, 1995). Arnold ran the CDFE during Gottlieb’s prison term.

Arnold’s self-proclaimed “biography” has its own creative embellishments and omissions. Over the years he has made much of his previous affiliation with the Sierra Club. As he tells it, "I was a board member of the Pacific Northwest chapter [of the Sierra Club]… I took Brock Evans' seat when . . . he went out to Washington, DC, to become their lobbyist and I was elected to occupy his seat, which I did until I resigned in 1971” (Halpin & de Armond, 1995).

Not surprisingly those who worked with him tell a different story. When told of Arnold’s claims, chapter founder Pauly Dyer reported that they had no board members during that period. Nor was his resignation the towering example of selfless martyrdom he makes it out to be. According to his co-workers, Arnold had tried to sell the chapter a slide show of Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness and became enraged when they did not have the funds available to purchase it (contrary to popular Far-Right mythology, few Sierra Club chapters are as wealthy as they love to believe). According to Evans, “We said, 'Ron, we'd love to, but we can't pay. Everybody here just works for nothing. Why don't you just give it to us?' And he got really pissed off and left. So the next thing I know there he is giving speeches to the Logging Association saying how awful we are and how he knows because he's one of us." Arnold’s antienvironmental career began almost immediately after this altercation took place.

In other words, though he makes much of having left the Sierra Club for “moral” reasons, Arnold actually left the organization… because he couldn’t make a quick buck off one of their less well-funded chapters.

How noble of him!

Like most Far-Right lobbies, Wise Use advocates rarely display any scientific literacy. According to Arnold, the northern spotted owl favors regrowth forest habitat rather than old-growth, and global warming is a myth (a claim he sticks to despite the stated Wise Use Agenda of promoting old-growth clear-cutting as part of a global warming mitigation plan (few Wise Use advocates are known for their consistency). Arnold also believes that the ozone hole has always existed (SourceWatch, 2007). "If chlorflourocarbons really destroy ozone,” he asks, “why isn't there a hole over chlorflourocarbon factories?" Wise Use fronts have spearheaded many global warming and environmental disinformation campaigns, and almost never rely on published science to defend their claims.

Numerous Far-Right special interests operate under the Wise Use banner. These interests range from grassroots extremist groups to major timber and extraction industries and Far-Right foundations from which nearly all of the movement’s funding is derived. Sponsors include Exxon-Mobil, Boise Cascade, Bloedel Timber, DuPont, Coors, Louisiana Pacific, the Reason Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and more. During its history it has also had a fringe element with ties to organizations like the John Birch Society, followers of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche, and the now-defunct Sahara Club (which unlike Earth First! actually did advocate violence directly targeting human life).