The Guitars Gently Weep
In 1968, Eric Clapton played a Gibson Les Paul guitar on the White Album’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by the Beatles. Other guitar greats like B.B. King, Slash, Alex Lifeson, Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend and Keith Richards have all used Gibson Guitars. You would think the Department of Justice has higher priorities than investigating a guitar company, but you’d be wrong.
By now, nearly everyone knows that the Department of Justice raided Gibson Guitars regarding the use of certain wood that may have violated the Lacey Import Act. At issue is Gibson’s import of unfinished, as opposed to finished, rosewood and ebony. FBI raids effectively shut down the business and idled workers. Gibson has since reopened, but the federal action raises issues of over-criminalization of business behavior.
Not surprisingly, the legislation to criminalize the use of ebony and rosewood in the Gibson guitars came from the usual suspects on the Left. But it also had support among American forestry business interests seeking to erect barriers to competition from overseas wood.
The craziest part of the Lacey Act is that it allows Gibson to import finished guitar pieces made from the same wood. But if Americans working in Tennessee cut, sand and varnish unfinished wood, then call in the FBI raiding parties. The law was amended in 2008 to reach this state with the support of the Bush administration.
This is the sort of illogical madness, fueled by special interest meddling in the economy that has most Americans rightfully disgusted with Washington.
“Whether or not that has something to do with DOJ’s zeal nobody knows.”
However, the fact that DOJ did not raid reliable Dem donors Martin, Taylor and Fender is rather a clue……
Exactly.
Captain zero is one generation out of the third world, but still has that mentality. The Lacey act and federal law enforcement was used to exact political revenge/intimidation tin-pot dictator style.
…were used….
oops.
You can educate someone in a lifetime to civilize them can take centuries.
I am estimating here, but I recall a study once showing that during the history of our country it took about one generation to get the majority of people to advance one grade more in education. I am not sure at what point in our history the majority of people graduated high school, but it was a long, hard climb to get to that point.
Education is one thing, but culture is another entirely. Culture is very hard to change and I suspect we have aspects of our culture that have been with us for many thousands of years of which we are mostly unaware.
Barry’s father was raised in Kenya, and his father was a mau-mau sympathizer for God’s sake. Does anyone remember the mau-maus and what they were? If Barry is an american at heart, I am a flying reindeer ( one of those cultural things that has been with us since…….) .
Zeal? Zeal, did you say? It was zeal that led the DOJ to pursue Larry Ellison’s acquisition of Peoplesoft. It was their blind stupidity that resulted in their needlessly wasting millions on that case, only to lose in the end, predictably, since they don’t have any economists that understand the nature of capitalism and the American economy.
A point which can’t be emphasized enough, BTW- this affair and the Lacety Act have NOTHING to do with endangered species. East Indian rosewood (Dalbergia latifolia) and common Indian ebony (Diospyros indica) are not endangered, not threatened, and in the case of EI rosewood grown on vast tree plantations (and sometimes tea plantations).
The Lacey act is instead a bizarre exercise in Third World trade protectionism, enacted by us rather than them.
I saw a stack of those rosewood blanks in a video of the raid and I have an obseervation: if those blanks were delivered according to specifications (i.e. a certain length, width, and thickness, as they they appeared in the video), then they were indeed finished, according to the engineering department. The company ordered these blanks to a specific size and they were delivered as requested. As legally purchased items, the company then has the option of modifying them in any way they wish, since they are now the owners of the material.
Its hardly surprising that the government has turned logic on its head. That’s one of the essential componenents of tyrannical power. And we have permitted it by voting for the exact wrong people for so many years.
We have received the government we so richly deserve through our ignorance and stupidity.
The fact that those sized blanks were legally -according to India- exported following WTO guidelines is what bothers me. The Lacey act was amended because of preassure from the WTO to combat illegal logging, deforrestation, global warming, etc. but these processed parts don’t fall in that catagory.
In regards to the Lacey Act, Mark Twain was right: No good deed goes unpunished.
…no good blank goes unvarnished…
This is the logical conclusion of the communization of America through Pavlovian conditioning since FDR.
What’s wrong with the commissars’ thugs carrying out the will of the people on capitalist weasels until collectivization is accomplished, and the power class is firmly in place?
Sorry, but you guys support the war on drugs, so this seems a little hypocritical. Moreover, over-fishing, over-farming, etc. do generate negative externalities, so there’s at least a rational economic case for state intervention (with which I disagree…but at least there’s a case).
Really? Check out David Swindle’s article:
http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2011/10/23/our-deceitful-marxist-presidents-cruel-war-on-sick-medicinal-marijuana-patients/
“Generate negative externalities?” WTF?
Left-speak alert. “Negative externalities” is an academic and faux intellectual twisted phrasing meaning “hidden costs.” Externalities include hidden benefits although lefties are loathe to mention these unless they’re inventing a perceived benefit (e.g. trying to justify windmill farms.)
Usually you see this phrase used in relation to energy discussion e.g. a “negative externality” re oil extraction may include perceived (invented!) environmental damage. My personal favourite is the notion that one of the primary “negative externalities” re oil is the military budget — as if the entire DOD budget is used solely to guarantee oil supplies — where the intent is to factor the DOD budget as a hidden cost of gasoline. Forget the obvious fact that the US military helps guarantee stability worldwide affecting everything from iPod deliveries to the European artichoke crop, meaning that the relationship to oil is ridiculously tenuous and barely discernable (if it can be factored at all.)
Any time this phrase is uttered you can guarantee that said utterer is clueless and is merely attempting to (clumsily) grind an axe.
Say f’ing what?!? What kind of jibberish is that? OWS crap?
Wha?…. Here’s your sillygism:
Conservatives support laws against X.
This is a law against a totally unrelated Y.
THEREFORE conservatives should support this law.
Explain yourself, if you can.
Ditto re the “negative externalities”. It’s been pointed out that the woods in question are not scarce or being made so, AND that India doesn’t forbid these products as exports.
Are you patronizingly taking up “the White Man’s Burden”, by claiming India doesn’t know what’s good for it?
Dude, that is a serious non-sequiteur and failed analogy wrapped up in one tidy package. If the Lacey Act had a strict prohibition on the importation and use of these sorts of wood by anyone in the US for any purpose, instead of placing restrictions on importation based upon the method of harvest, the laws might be somewhat similar in construction, if not in motive. Last I checked, though, noone was knocking over liquor stores or mugging little old ladies in order to score a rosewood fix.
It wasn’t DOJ that raided Gibson, it was the Fish and Wildlife Service.
DOJ may take the lead in any resulting prosecutions/extortions, they may have pulled the trigger, but FWS enforces the Lacey Act.
As this story amply demonstrates, Republicans are just as guilty of perpetrating despotic regulations against business as the Democrats. Listen to center to right commentators like Bill O’Reilly for a while and you will hear vitriol just as hostile toward business as your garden variety leftist. Currently, if you are a businessman motivated by profit, you are automatically guilty until proven innocent. Your behavior must be regulated and watch at every turn.
Principled advocates of capitalism have a lot of work to do.
Bush may have signed the legislation, but it was originated in, and passed out, of the Pelosi-Reid Congress elected in 2006.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Henry Waxman’s fingerprints on this.
The Bush Department of Agriculture was supporting the proposal. That was their postion, period. How it became law (vetos, farm bills, overrides) is less important than the fact the offical position of the Bush Department of Ag on the narrow issue was: support.
True that repubs have a lot to answer for from the Bush years, although any Bush era big gov advocates or crony capitalists are pikers compared to Obama. Fortunately I think the Tea Party is doing a pretty good job of reforming the repub party, and significant elements of todays repub party might actually beleive in free markets. Dems are corrupt from top to bottom, and always have been, I see no group that is reforming them. True the OWS movement opposes crony capitalism, but only because they oppose ALL capitalism.
The fact that this law was signed by Pres. Bush justifies my anger with the Bush Admin. in the end and further shows that the creep of crony capitolism (Facsim) coupled with the criminalization of free enterprise demonstrates that government has become our enemy.
The intent of the law is proper (see: road to hell, paving, good intentions) but the event in question is bureaucracy run amok (see Pournelle’s Iron Law Of Bureacracy) where the problem is the wording of the law and bureacrats weaseling via this to create fiefdoms for themselves.
I could be wrong about this, but I believe the 2008 amendment to the Lacey Act passed over President Bush’s veto.
Actually, the amendments to the Lacey Act were attached to the God-awful farm bill that President Bush vetoed. Congress, including many of those Tennessee legislators, voted to override. The overreach by the federal government should be a major campaign issue, but, of course, no one is touching it.
President Bush didn’t sign the Lacey act, he merely signed an amendment to it that may or may not (I’m no specialist in it) have made this farce possible (but given the scope of the law, they could probably have found an excuse anyway, and indeed Gibson has been raided under the Lacey act in the past, and still hasn’t got back the goods that were stolen from them during that raid even though courts have long since decided in the company’s favour).
In design, the Lacey act is very simple: it makes it a crime in the US to import into the US goods which it is a crime to export or produce in other countries under the law of those other countries.
The devil, as always, is in the details. Which law in which country for example. People have been prosecuted under the Lacey act for breaking foreign laws that didn’t apply to the goods they were purchasing, laws that were either repealed before the purchase or only enacted after the purchase. Or laws were interpreted incorrectly by US agencies to arrive at a crime when in the country of origin of the goods a different interpretation was used (which seems to be the case here).
You wrote “In design, the Lacey act is very simple: it makes it a crime in the US to import into the US goods which it is a crime to export or produce in other countries under the law of those other countries.” That is the problem with the Lacey Act because it subverts US law to those of other countries. Also, what if its a crime to export or produce something in one country but not another? Which country’s law applies?
Furthermore, what if, like the Indian law in question, the host country says it’s not a crime, but our esteemed justiciars decide it is? Whose interpretation applies?
Finally, what if the law in question isn’t an environmental one as the nutballs claim? In the Gibson case the Indian law says its illegal to export unfinished ebony and rosewood from India. That sounds like a labor law designed to ensure employment for Indian woodworkers to me. Also, if an Indian woodworker rubs a piece of sandpaper across the rough edge where the saw went through it and says it’s finished as far as he’s concerned, who is Eric Holder to argue with him?
The problem is Gibson moved to a right to work state Tennessee.
Leaving a state controlled by union thugs Michigan.
Funny, nobody mentioned that?
It’s not creeping, it’s a freight train with no brakes.
Why not work to repeal the Lacey Act in its entirety?
It was written to bring down another lucrative industry. It succeeded. The Lacey Act was written to criminalize the business of bird feathers. for hats. A the turn of last century. They were afraid they’d kill off another bird, the way they killed off passenger pigeons. Right now, you can’t ranch birds and take their feathers, if they are endangered. You’re entitled to chicken feathers, and ostrich plumes. That’s it.
They killed off the hat industry instead.
We have tons of chickens, we have tons of cattle. We nearly lost tigers, until they could get Vegas- ized.
Why not say the “tragedy of the commons” dictates that the Lacey Act dies a horrible death of old age?
C F Martin, the makers of someof the best guitars in the world, use wood from the same sources as gibson. Difference? C F Martin is a union shop and democratic supporter.
Source:http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/08/gibson-guitars-wood-lacey-act/
“To prove his point, Lawton shows how C.F. Martin, one of Gibson’s competitors, is using the exact same wood but is not raided because its CEO is a long-time democratic supporter.”
There are a couple of legal items here I wish that Mr. Adams would look into a lot deeper.
One – the Lacey Act seems to promote the obliteration of due process. Merely on the word of a complainant, Gibson was raided and very expensive materials were confiscated, at least twice. Gibson had to sue for the return of their materials and records, and hasn’t got them back yet.
So where’s Gibson’s right to defend itself in a swift trial before a jury of its peers? It is convicted of nothing, but is being heavily punished by unaccountable bureaucrats simply on an assertion that the Act was violated. How did the newly-revised Lacey Act acquire teeth that trumped due process? Is that constitutional?
Two – Gibson is not the only manufacturer of string instruments in the USA. It claims that it uses the same procedures in obtaining wood that its competitors do. Why have there been no similar raids on other guitar makers?
I am not an expert, but here’s a guess: you are assuming violations of criminal statutes versus violations of regulations. Criminal’s rights are much better defined and protected than businesses when it comes to regulations. Regulations are non-objective & decided only after extensive litigation and court rulings which determine practical implications. Essentially, EPA has wide ranging power granted by various judges ruling. These are very different than criminal statutes. The same is true with OSHA safety regulations & anti-trust trade regulations. These regulations treat businessmen–our most productive citizens–as criminals until proven innocent. Regulations have all the hallmarks of a dictatorship.
Rule of Men versus Rule of Law?
Greetings:
There’s an interesting scene in the second “Godfather” movie. As the pre-Godfather, played by Robert DeNiro, is starting off on his career in crime, he is approached by a white-hatted and -suited local mafioso who tells DeNiro that he just wants to dip his beak, like a little bird, into DeNiro’s growing ill-gotten gains. DeNiro quickly understand the situation and shortly thereafter, while the neighborhood is distracted by a religious festival, kills the well dressed mafioso.
When the rule of law morphs into the ruler’s law, who can feel safe. Today’s “environmental” groups are a kind of extortion industry, a veritable tyranny of a minority, disrupting the ability of others to do their commerce while hoping to wet their beaks in the wealth, property, and capital of others. With their fellow travelers ensconced in the Obama administration (the EPA has been caught teaching these groups how to sue the EPA to get their way or at least some more financing), a wetted beak will not long be sufficient. “Donations” to their organizations or like-minded politicians will become the requisite troth plighting to be allowed to function unmolested.
First it should be noted that the first raid on Gibson occured in 2009. The confiscated wood and computers have still not been returned and the DOJ has still NOT FILED ANY CHARGES against Gibson. They have used the existance of Lacey to justify their raids but have not actually identified any crimes Gibson may have committed.
Secondly, Gibson has been raided at both their Nashville and Memphis facilities. The third manufacturing facility in Bozeman Mt. has not been touched by the Feds. That is notable as the Bozeman plant produces Gibson acoustic guitars (which use much more rosewood than electric guitars) and is , bye the way, a UNION operation!
Prosecutorial discretion is why other manufacturers have not been raided…..or more accurately it is actually the executive branch choosing to only raid or attempt to enforce the law when it comes to those they do not like.
This is in direct violation of the equal protection clause.
When our country was founded we determined that to create laws that only applied to some, but not all, to be fraught with peril and corruption.
If it is a law, passed by congress, then to not even move to uphold the law is not prosecutorial discretion, but just executive branch discretion. It is one thing for a cop to pull you over for speeding and decide to warn, it is quite another for a cop to only pull over those he doesn’t like and tell his friends they can speed all they like.
“Two – Gibson is not the only manufacturer of string instruments in the USA. It claims that it uses the same procedures in obtaining wood that its competitors do. Why have there been no similar raids on other guitar makers?”
Well there may not have been raids on other guitar makers, but on this subject I saw a post somewhere that a piano importer had gotten into trouble with the same bozos, when importing some antique pianos (as in, actually used by Mozart and Beethoven), where the *paperwork* was possibly not completed correctly.
Pournelle’s Iron Law continues to reveal itself.
Our government of for and by the Bureaucrats continue their crime wave on all of US.
US v. Jones Concerning Warrantless GPS Installation and Tracking Under the Fourth Amendment, This is a copy what has been filed. http://epic.org/amicus/jones/EPIC_Jones_amicus_fi…
Amendment 4 – Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
We are living in an “Obama Haze”.
http://tinyurl.com/82pp5m9
Some people don’t want to wake up.
The average American commits three felonies per day, according to Harvey Silverglate in his book “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds target the Innocent.” And it isn’t just white collar crime, as Gibson found out. It also helps to be politically connected in order to avoid getting nailed for the felonies you unknowingly have committed. Avoiding crime was simple back in the day when it was easy to know something was wrong, like stealing a car or bashing someone’s head in. Now, it’s all in the way federal agency rules are interpreted based on vague laws Congress passed while never having read them. And they wonder why their approval rating is so low.
“The conventional word that it employed to describe tyranny is ‘systematic’. The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but the unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure they have followed the rules correctly or not. Thus, the ruled can always be found to be in the wrong.”
~ Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A memoir page 51.
Keep this in mind, as these kooks encroach closer and closer to where we actually live. A well swung Les Paul or SG will inflict as much damage, if not more, than any other weapon in the house and unlike a Fender, still maintain its tones.
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