From Outside The Trees
by JIM BEERS
The condition of any forest is always a summary of many things:
1. It is an inventory of all the plants and animals present.
2. It is an understanding of how those plants and animals are currently changing.
3. It is the knowledge of the history of those plants and animals.
4. It is an appreciation of the benefits and utility of those plants and animals.
5. It is intelligent speculation on what the future of those plants and animals holds.
It is only when we put all these factors together that can we can decide how to manage the forest. Management of forests, in the United States, is always a human decision made by either owners or government. All forests evolve naturally and "unnaturally" as human activities, weather, "succession", earthquakes, volcanoes, new species, and extinctions occur. Magnificent forests of biblical times can turn into quasi-deserts as in present-day Lebanon; or they can reappear in different dimensions as along modern Eastern US waterways and the forests managed for timber in the South or on the West Coast. Forests, like grasslands or ocean fish, are ever changing and ever present in one form or another.
Human decisions based on human values are the determinants of what the future holds for the forest. The decisions that determine the forest's future are often the result of agendas that, while accomplishing other purposes, can transform the forest into productive farms and villages as in the United States or can eradicate the forest for millenniums as in Lebanon.
Unlike the above-mentioned complexities involved in assessing the condition of a given forest, assessing the condition of the United States today is, surprisingly, a simple affair.
The revolutionary preludes gripping the nation today began in 1864. No, not on the killing fields of Cold Harbor or the tortuous siege of Vicksburg; rather it all began in far away London. In that year, the organizing meeting of the 1st Socialist International took place.
While Americans were killing each other at a staggering pace, the "developed" world was coming to a boil. In Europe, industrialization was transforming a rural culture into an urban nightmare of factories and governmental oppression by early capitalist interest groups controlling those governments. Abuses of poor peasants in Russia and the helplessness of European workers were rampant as an emerging American society's freedoms, liberty, and hope provided a stark contrast and ray of hope to millions. The emergence of radical movements and philosophies however, popped up everywhere as alternatives to isolated monarchs, abusive nobilities, and unfettered capitalists engaged in all manner of new technologies and inventions at the expense of "the common man".
Socialist Internationale was, and remains, the guiding society for the notion that only totalitarian government controlled by " the people" could "save" the poor and create "equality". From the start, this concept that only a totalitarian regime controlled by "the people" would eradicate poverty and the abuses of the rich and powerful meant an unalterable opposition to ANY other form of government.
Socialist International spread like wildlfire through Europe and the United States. When internal arguments and external opposition by opponents became too great, Socialist International was dissolved in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1876 only to be re-formed in 1889 in Paris on the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille.
At the same time Socialism was being adopted in England by rich dilettantes and pseudo-intellectuals and by anarchists in Russia. Sitting parlor discussions and public debates in England by the like of George Bernard Shaw opposed by GK Chesterton exposed a "philosophy" of replacing capitalism and the monarchy by a government of wiser individuals such as, surprisingly, George Bernard Shaw and others in the Fabian Socialist parlors of England. These early Socialists initially identified themselves with the Roman general that opposed Hannibal, hence the name "Fabian" as an identity of bravery and discreet retreat when necessary.
This spread to the US by radical and naive American friends and students of these new English "thinkers" in England. Thus the first two decades of the 20th century are marked by the violent Socialists known as Communists fomenting revolution and their eventual bloody takeover in Russia; European Socialists taking over national political parties; and American Socialists (under Woodrow Wilson, one of those "enlightened" professors) taking control of the Democrat Party and amending the US Constitution to provide for a Federal Income Tax to provide unlimited central government income, and the popular election of US Senators to begin the devolution of State powers). Consider also that after "The Great War" "crisis" President Wilson began the movement for a "World Government" known as a "League of Nations".
While Socialism began apace in England (gun seizures, union partnerships, strikes, takeover of the Labour Party, etc.), Communism crushed all opposition and instituted a "workers paradise" of executions, gulags, terror, and total dictatorship in Russia. In America, Wilson died, the Republicans took control and a period of Prohibition, prosperity, criminal excess, and criminal government officials from Washington to Chicago were the norm. Throughout this period Socialists and Communists recognized their common goal and how they could play off each other. They adopted the completely amoral approach of lying about memberships and goals and what they were about. While Communists have always had bare contempt for the naiveté of their Socialist cousins; Socialists have maintained the belief that Communists, while drastic, were simply misinformed and that with a little explanation they would adopt the more gradual and "intellectual" approach of Socialism to establish the "worker's paradise". American Socialists and Communists maintained a low profile outside of union organizing during the 1920's and then they received (like the current Democrats) a "bonanza", i.e. a "crisis". The Depression ushered in FDR and a whole gang of Socialists that were City politicians and lawyers that had been traveling to and from Socialist and Labour Party get-togethers in England for years. Their Russian sympathies were responsible for the US non-response to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Stalin in the 1930's and the Gulags and rampant government murders of millions in Russia. The fact that Stalin had tried to ally himself in a secret treaty with Hitler's ambitions to conquer all of Europe was only looked on as a "necessary" maneuver by his American sympathizers.
Domestically, Socialist activists like Felix Frankfurter, Harold Ickes, and Louis Brandeis all realized like their predecessors under Wilson that the main impediment to US Socialism (European nations including Britain had no such impediment) was the US Constitution with its guaranteed rights and separation of powers. Expansion of the Federal government with an alphabet of programs like NRA (later declared unconstitutional), CCC, and others were matched with "stacking" the Supreme Court and a downward economic spiral not as steep as England but headed in the same direction as Russia. Federal intervention in every "nook and cranny" despite Constitutional prohibitions were hailed by all as "necessary" just as today.
Also during this period of the early 20th century an alphabet of open and subversive (to the established order) groups formed, re-formed, disappeared, and were reincarnated as tools of the moment. Following the Spanish American War and the early Russian Revolution, Socialists and Communists formed groups like ISS, the International Socialist Society and the ISB, International Socialist Bureau. "Student" chapters sprouted under the direction of radical professors and sponsors that were only interested in creating more Socialists. The League for Industrial Democracy (LID) worked with unions to form alliances that ran hot and cold as union bosses felt uneasy about heading toward what they saw in Russia (no union bosses) and their need for political power in Europe and the US. Communists formed all manner of "cells" and "Parties" and fronts of every imaginable distortion like "Peoples' Parties" and "Workers' Parties" and "Democratic Republics" that were neither "democratic" nor "republics". Throughout the 1930's and WWII American and European Socialists and "closet" Communists excused and supported Communist Russia and the emerging Chinese Communists. For example, why was Russia armed by America and then allowed to "take" Berlin and then drop the "Iron Curtain" over the Eastern European countries while our Chinese ally Chiang Kai-shek went with limited American largesse during and after the war as Mao and the Chinese Communists took control of that nation? This latter phenomenon and not a "drunken" Wisconsin Senator was the reason for the "Red Witch Hunts" in the US after WWII. As the Cold War took shape, the State Department, Hollywood, and several Universities were found to have Russian sympathizers and activists from propagandists to spies that were acting out their love of Socialism/Communism and their hatred of the USA and our Constitutional government. This was prudently recognized as dangerous and intolerable by a nation threatened with annihilation.
After WWII, the Labour party took over Britain by promising "the moon" to war weary Brits: what they gave them after 6 years was a devastated economy in ruins and rationing of everything from 1.5 eggs per person per week to government housing with lists longer than the English Channel. By now Cambridge and Oxford shared their international reputation for Socialist worker production with Harvard. Students from these institutions were more often than not Socialist activists and Communist sympathizers. US concepts of rights coming from a "Creator" and Private Property and Separation of Powers and tightly circumscribed government roles were all at least questionable and at most things to be destroyed and replaced to these graduates. Names like JFK and his older brother were associated with Walter Rostow (Socialist International member), John Maynard Keynes (a Socialist of the first order), Howard K Smith (who vacationed in Moscow like young Bill Clinton), Dean Rusk, and others emerged to carry on and expand upon the concepts of Bertrand Russell and other European Socialists regarding bigger and more powerful central governments evolving into Socialism. More and more Republicans like Wayne Morse of Oregon and Jacob Javits of New York emerged to advance Socialist goals proposed by Democrat politicians and bureaucrats. Politicians and professors often attended and addressed Socialist groups here and abroad while denying membership or sympathies for these groups. Emerging groups like Americans for Democratic Action and the American Civil Liberties Union sprouted to advocate Socialist goals (to this day) and were supported by the likes of Hubert Humphrey and other "Liberal" politicians. Always bigger Federal responsibilities were advocated while UN conferences and "Treaties" were encouraged. (As a relic of a bygone era, Will Rogers observed that "the US never lost a war or won a conference")
As the radical 1960's coincided with the "crisis" of drugs and Vietnam protests (sound familiar?) and Democrat control of the White House and Congress emerged; the JFK and LBJ Administrations expanded on the FDR federalism which was in turn constructed on the Woodrow Wilson "legacy". While British Labour promised housing and nationalized medicine, and Russia conducted controlled tours of the "workers paradise", Americans invented more Socialist tools for gaining power. Animal "rights", race and sex identification and preferences, abortion, "gay rights", and "environmental" needs were added to the usual promises of "free education", "social security", "equality", "free" health care, "guaranteed" wages, and other beguiling promises. As the percentage of Americans that paid taxes rose and the number of Americans marrying or growing up in families dwindled, the allure of having others pay for everything and not having to behave responsibly became more and more common. Both Democrat and Republican (Nixon, Carter, Ford, Clinton, and the Bushes) Presidents fell in line with the notion that this was no longer a Republic ruled by a Constitution that was binding on government but rather a classic Democracy that was truly a "mob rule" society where government did whatever pleased those that would keep them and their friends in power. Those opposed to that axiom like Reagan and Palin and Jindal are vilified and ridiculed by all as their ideas go unmentioned and unconsidered.
The following are a few of the intermediate goals of the Socialists and their Communist brethren based on 150 years of sordid history:
Government-run Medicine
" Utilities
" Schools
" "Churches"
" "Property"
" "Business"
" Housing
" Life & Death
" Activities
" "Rights"
" Diets, energy, transportation, movement, etc. (this list could literally go on forever.)
Add to this the lip service given a world government (up to the point it threatens the power and wealth of the current leadership of course), no private gun possession, and a disdain for a military as a foreign policy tool (though not as an internal control tool) and you have the "intermediate" goals of Socialism. While Socialists evidently believe it would end in their Nirvana, only a fool believes that it does not simply descend into Communism and anarchy as in Russia, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, and Cuba. Under such systems you can easily slide into the nightmare of Zimbabwe, Cambodia, Liberia, or Burma given an "unhappy" general or sergeant.
The ultimate goal was and will always remain the ultimate goal of despots and despot bootlickers throughout the ages: obtaining and maintaining absolute power.
So, what is the view of "the US forest" today?
Nationalizing Banks
" Medicine
" Energy
" Right to Life
" Religious charities
" Housing
" Gun possession
Add to this:
- Propaganda doublespeak as in passing a Trillion dollars "Stimulus" one day, announcing the need for "deficit reduction" the next day, and announcing nationalized medicine funding the next day (conflicts much like the two opposing pastors at the Inauguration).
- Defense reductions in favor of "dialogue" in a very hostile world.
- Top government officers that cheat on their taxes and ignore disclosure requirements they impose on the rest of us.
- Diversions from what they are doing by legislating about interstate chimpanzees and more government land closures (Wilderness and Marine Sanctuaries).
- Pitting one ethnic group or sex against another for government favors.
- Vilifying Executives and other successful persons and corporations as scapegoats much like the Communists did when they took over Russia.
- Refusing to control massive illegal immigration. (No better example of the intended effect of amending the US Constitution under Wilson in 1913 regarding the election of US Senators from appointment by State legislatures to popularly elected offices exists than when Sen. Hutchison of Texas equivocated the other day during a discussion about the drug violence spilling into Texas from Mexico. When asked if she supported closing off that border, she "himmed and hawed" because she gets reelected not by serving Texas but by serving "national" and "international" interest groups and causes that give her support and media attention. Were she still appointed by the Texas Legislature she would either be history at the end of her term or a whole bunch of Texas legislators would be heading back to their own law offices and a regular workweek after such a disgusting performance.)
- The audacity to say that Carbon Dioxide that is everywhere in abundance causes climate change and that a government "cap and trade" (i.e. Trillion dollar tax scheme) will affect climate at all much less favorably: then to have a meek citizenry accept draconian "cap and trade" legislation that will further destroy business, employment, and the economy on this false basis.
I used to write exclusively about environmental and animal "rights" abuses. Today, those issues are being subsumed into the larger tsunami of Socialist destruction of the very fiber of our nation. I used to recommend that pet owners and hunters defend the rights of cockfighters (property owners) and trappers (wild animal "users") but no one listened except for some veterinarians and radicals that all but threatened my life. In this thumbnail description of what American Socialists and Communists are doing today, I expect little more by reminding each of us about our stake in defending our Constitution and each other rather than asking "what is in the Stimulus Bill for me?" Like Palin and Jindal I expect accusations of seeing "black helicopters" and "conspiracies" or simply to be ignored. What I have written here is what has actually brought us to this sad state of affairs,
Democrats think I am being "partisan"; I am not; I am simply stating what they have become. Republicans think I am being "unfair"; I am not; they have become simply sycophants to those that will give them crumbs. The stakes are now way beyond simply not having a dog or a gun or hunting or trapping or ranching or fishing: all of those will be swept away in this political tsunami along with everything else we hold dear by those currently in the White House and those in command of our Congress.
For anyone with the perseverance to have read this far, there is one confirmation that is sadly an irony confirming all that I have written here. Remind those that scoff or laugh at you about what I have written here of the following.
QUESTION #1: Who was the "Corresponding Secretary and Founder" of that first Socialist Internationale meeting in London in 1864? Time's up!
ANSWER: Karl Marx.
QUESTION #2. What White House "Czarina" had her membership and other activities airbrushed off of the Socialist Internationale website when she was recently named to a top government post? Time's up!
ANSWER: Carol Browner, current White House Environment and "Climate 'Change?'" Czarina and former EPA Administrator under President (and now "Internationale" money grubber as his wife conducts "our" foreign policy as Secretary of State) Clinton.
Ironic isn't it. The last Czar and his family were murdered by the Communists in 1918 and here we are 90 years later concentrating more and more power in the White House (think Census, a plethora of White House Czar and Czarina positions that make "Secretaries" and a "Cabinet" mere affectations) utilizing the old "crisis" atmosphere (WWI, Depression, WWII, Vietnam, and now "THE ECONOMIC CRISIS") under the strongest Socialist government in the short history of this nation and we call them CZARS and CZARINAS! Surely some future historian will observe that we must have had an ironic sense of humor TO THE LAST!
Jim Beers
28 February 2009
This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
be found at http://jimbeers7.blogster.com (Jim Beers Uncommon Sense)
Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@comcast.net
- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
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