Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Another Open Message to ASFE - Association of Socialist Federated Engineers?

This morning, I got an email from one of the professional associations that I belong to - ASFE - and this email animated me to write up this post.

From my understanding of things, in the beginning of this association's life it was all about bringing the owners of geotechnical firms (dirt engineering & testing companies)  together so that they could figure out ways to reduce risk and exposure on geotechnical engineering projects. At that time, insurance was very difficult to obtain and these owners saw that if they did not band together and implement industry-wide voluntary practices of "good engineering" that their firms would soon be sued out of existence.

With that initial goal, the association proceeded to develop the best liability and practice guidelines and protocols in the engineering industry and from these initial beginnings, the association has expanded into helping with business practice and management techniques, as these things greatly affect the liability exposure of the firm.

It was at this stage that I directed that my firm join  the association, for I wanted to confer with other business owners about problems and solutions that we all  - as business owners -faced. This was a good thing for my firm for many years, however, as is common with all associations, this one too has entered a stage of its life-cycle where it seems the purpose of the association is the association, and that the members are used as income units to fund the association and to fund agendas of the ruling politburo that are vastly different than the agenda of sound business practice and liability reduction and which are vastly different than what any individual engineer would privately agree to in his own right mind.

Thus it is that we now have the association sending out emails like the one that I received this morning, an email that is making George Orwell and Ayn Rand either turn over in their graves or roll their eyes as if to say " I told you so".

Here is the text:
Brownfields [Oh such a nice cuddly name - for a chemical waste containing site] 2011 Call for Session Ideas Is Open!



The U.S. EPA is seeking proposals for educational sessions at the 14th National Brownfields Conference, scheduled for April 3-5, 2011 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. ASFE is a sponsor of the event, [you have to be kidding] the nation's largest, most comprehensive conference focused on issues facing brownfields practitioners, policy makers, and communities.

This year, conference organizers are particularly interested in ideas related to green jobs, community engagement and environmental justice, the business of brownfields, green technology and emerging solutions, planning for community revitalization, and sustainability.

[Note that nowhere in the email is it stated that they are interested in cleaning up chemicals in the dirt. ]


This is the email that I sent back [OK maybe with a few edits]:

Got your earlier message about the Brownfields Conference. I note the do-gooder feel good language of the prospectus and wanted to know if you will you please explain to me what "environmental justice" is? I have never taken an engineering or other course in this. I have taken many courses in rationality justice, capitalism justice, personal justice, societal justice, farm animal justice, auto repair justice etc. These were usually styled under the heading LAW. Indeed, the entire purpose of the LAW IS justice, so we do not need "environmental justice".

While you are making up the platitudes to justify the introduction of such Orwellian terms like "environmental justice", terms deliberately introduced so as to engender the collective, be on the lookout for the FedEx package of Kool-Aid that I have sent up to you.
Have you all gone stark raving mad buying into this pathological liberal collectivist mindset and using my dues money to further it - a mindset that is unsustainable for our culture and civilization as a whole?

Art Koenig, PE
Call to Action - If any of you other engineers out there are fed up with your engineering associations using your dues money to engage in acts like this and to do things such as bringing in speakers trying to push the collectivist socialist green communist save the earth and feed the whales agendas, then kick and scream about it - or just do like John Galt . I did.

No comments: