WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE
(and where did they come from?)
by JIM BEERS
Despite the foolish and naïve act (take note hunters, fishermen, loggers, dog owners, ranchers, et al) that “the wood-products industry, including the American Forest and Paper Association and the Hardwood Federation, formed an unusual alliance with groups like the Rainforest Action Network and the United Steelworkers to lobby for tougher regulation of wood products entering the U.S.”, “Other wood importers complain that the law is vague and requires complicated paperwork. They also worry it could be used to unfairly punish companies trying in good faith to abide by the law.”
Federal “probable cause” for such raids, seizures, and prosecutions include such dastardly deeds as:
- The wood “may not have belonged to the Peruvian woman who sold it.”
“The exporting agent (i.e. no doubt in some far-off office under a fan straight out of the movie Casablanca) used incorrect coding.”
- The importer (i.e. the American entrepreneur) “could have done more to verify information about the seller and ensure the paper work was correct.”
What is the result of all this? An importer is “scared to import anything.” He “is selling off his inventory and may go out of business once his stock runs out.” Guitar manufacturers are incurring heavy financial losses and employees are threatened with not only the loss of jobs if the companies fold but also with prosecution by federal agents, federal prosecutors and federal courts. Musicians striving for quality music and homeowners interested in quality flooring or other quality wood products must learn to (like all Americans according to the President) learn to get along with lesser woods like oak and hickory and what, dogwood?
While “many U.S. wood producers” think it “was a good trade” because “lumber illegally harvested abroad resulted in unfairly low prices for imported wood”; “Nonprofit groups and unions, meanwhile, also wanted to stop deforestation and protect U.S. jobs.”
What a hodgepodge of avarice, protectionism, and bureaucracy all dressed up as moral righteousness! Where to begin?
1. The various cherries, mahoganies, rosewoods, et al of concern here are not available in the US so the slavish publicity from submissive US wood entrepreneurs kowtowing to environmental radicals about protecting US businesses is nonsense. It is simply pandering to the environmentalists like state fish and wildlife agencies pander to USFWS or businesses pander to Jesse Jackson’ threats of a boycott in the naïve belief that it will somehow protect them down the road.
2. The 111 year-old Lacey Act was passed to protect state wildlife from out-of-state poachers. That it was later applied (by guys like me to be truthful) to “foreign (wildlife) laws” was the beginning of one more aspect of the federal tyranny we are dealing with today. That it now applies to foreign “wood” is outrageous. Foreign wildlife laws; much less foreign wood possession, sale, and export laws; are neither clear, consistent, nor enforceable by other than corrupt payoffs to “officials” for worthless ‘permits” and “forms” signed by copy machine. This same tactic of US enforcement of questionable foreign “laws” and UN “regulations” is exactly what USFWS and their radical environmental/animal rights allies are using to strangle international trophy hunting. Coincidentally these two campaigns are meant to assuage and evoke support from the same extremist organizations by politicians and bureaucrats.
3. The little mentioned facts that this crusade to “Save The Rainforest” is a sop to US unions, protectionism for US wood dealers, and responsible for further decreases in US employment and US business during a Recession while furthering federal bureaucratic growth belies its real purpose – to “stop deforestation”. This latter goal, i.e. stopping deforestation, is code for stopping any and all forest management and use just as has been done with federal lands throughout the US. Forest management, despite the years of brainwashing and what a recent “environmental” college graduate will tell you, is not “deforestation”.
4. When any government supports either citizens or other governments beyond the Constitutional roles spelled out in our Constitution they inevitably create increasingly helpless and dependent clients. We need look no further than current state fish and wildlife agencies or the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to see where help ultimately breeds helplessness, unmet expectations and dependence. When the US government assumes the role of regulating the sale and transfer of foreign products in foreign countries (for instance, wood from some remote foreign woodland) the US is only delaying the day when the foreign country can and will – A. understand and practice forest management leading to sustained uses and B. regulate and profit honestly from the export and sale of highly-sought wood resources that would benefit the country in many ways. Foreign corruption only continues in such an unjust scenario wherein a US importer is prosecuted for not having “done more to verify information about the seller and ensure the paper work was correct” while foreign individuals and nations “do a double arabesque and pirouette off the stage” unscathed and unaccountable.
5. How can Americans tolerate this continuing war on American businesses while listening to the whining coming from Washington about the debt, joblessness, increasing taxes, stimulus, etc., etc.? Will all guitars be built of bamboo from China in the future? Will every American tradition from hunting and dog training to ranching and fine guitar music be sacrificed to this environmental deification of every plant and animal over the human civilization governments were founded to sustain?
6. Who are these heavily-armed agents “raiding” these dens of business iniquity? They are paid as much as FBI agents. They are paid comparable to FBI agents with Premium Pay, wide vehicle usage, early 20-year retirement, and support equipment and technology unimaginable from tracking to listening devices. They are the ones that decided that Mr. Hill in Idaho, who recently killed one of three grizzlies in his yard where his kids were playing, should be dragged into federal court to face large fines and imprisonment after state wardens found no such evidence. They are the ones that are quoted at the end of the WSJ article “Forestry Law Splits Wood Industry” as saying, “We focus our enforcement efforts on illegal activities that represent a threat to wildlife and plant resources.”
How about this? How about focusing on the welfare and protection of the human taxpayers and businesses that pay your salaries?
The Lacey Act has been the legal basis for something called The Injurious Wildlife List. This is a List of animals that may not be imported into the US unless accompanied by a US Permit that specifies strict conditions for such animals. For instance, the mongoose has been on that List for over 50 years. Without a permit, hardly ever granted except for zoos, you could neither import, transport, nor possess a named Injurious Wildlife List animal. Those same guys threatening guitar manufacturers and their employees are the same ones that have had this Injurious Wildlife List enforcement authority for longer than I have been alive.
Setting aside zebra mussels, killer bees, and other such animals that got in (the US) on their own: what about:
1. Reticulated pythons now breeding in and spreading in the Everglades?
2. Nile monitor lizards now inhabiting and multiplying in foreclosed homes in Florida?
3. Asian and silver carp that have decimated the Mississippi River Watershed fish populations, endanger boaters as they jump into and over boats, and are now threatening The Great Lakes to the extent that Billions of dollars of commerce, jobs, and tax revenues will be destroyed by shutting down the Mississippi/Lake Michigan connection at Chicago (while still not protecting the Great Lakes from some mischief or terrorism from criminal interests)?
There are many other examples but just consider how the same agency (US Fish & Wildlife Service) and the same agents that (with no culpability or consequences for the above mentioned imported wildlife catastrophes) are punishing American business and jobs over foreign woods. They are the same ones that ignore and ignored their responsibility to protect the American homeland, citizens, and economy from deadly, dangerous, and destructive foreign animals and today protect and spread deadly and destructive wolves and grizzly bears with draconian ruthlessness. Consider the Billions they spend to force wolves and grizzlies on helpless American subjects (the right word these days) as well as what they get and spend on all this other nonsense while the President and Congress prepare to slash National Defense and Social Security since they are as likely to agree on spending cuts and taxes as are The Right To Life and Planned Parenthood to agree on what is human life.
Like federal land control and all the very bad laws of the last half century (Endangered Species, Wilderness, Animal Welfare, Marine Mammal Protection, Lacey Act on plants, Scenic Roads and Rivers, Viewsheds, Roadless Declarations, etc.) must be repealed or seriously amended in order to restore sensible laws, a healthy economy, and the American Dream.
These agents will transfer around the federal law enforcement community for promotions, locations, stable jobs, less travel, and a host of other reasons. In line with that they will do just what we got a peek at in the infamous “Fast and Furious” ATF scandal. Like that scandal, there is no accountability… a few get transferred without explanation and life goes on in a government gun control/distribution agency. The fact that Operation “Fast and Furious” coincided with US efforts to justify and sign a UN Small Arms Treaty in order to gut the 2nd Amendment goes unmentioned and unanswered in all the publicity. Like that scandal, agents and a bureaucracy supposedly saving rainforests is decimating US Business and American families at the behest of dark forces. Like that scandal we anticipate continuing to fund this sort of national destruction while cutting Defense and Human Services.
In fact, I would be willing to bet that if we ever again see a federal budget (what a shameful disgrace it is to say that about the Trillions we are spending without accountability for years now) there will be Budget Requests for MORE ATF and USFWS Special Agents to 1. “Control guns at our borders” and 2. “Save the (foreign) Rainforests by increasing wood importation regulations and enforcement”.
What will prevent all this from collapsing is beyond me. I am truly fearful for the future of this Nation. It is not the one I grew up in and none of these people were any neighbors, teachers, relatives, or bosses of mine.
Jim Beers
2 Sep. 2011
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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 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.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net