Rodney R. Stubbs: The Great Cooperative Conservation Con

All around the Nation there is a new con game in town. The Cooperative
Conservation Listening Sessions by President George W. Bush can be reported as the Great Cooperative Con.

After getting up at 4:00 AM and driving three hours to Redmond, OR, we
gathered outside the Expo center at the Redmond airport. The expo center is
at the end of the main runway. Overhead planes were taking off laden with
smoke jumpers and chemical retardants heading off to fight anyone of several
large wildfires burning out of control in the Cascades where more than 2,500
lighting strikes hit the unmanaged forests under the control and management
of the federal government during the past 24 hours.

Lingering in the yard in front of the expo center was a handful of lobbyists
passing out nametags so that in case you did not know whom you were or why
you were there you could glance down at your badge. It also gave the
political types an opportunity to shake your hand and pretend they knew you
on a personal level.

The ranchers and farmers were few in number, because this is the middle of
harvest season. Hay is being stored for the winter, combines reaping the
fields of grain, and cattle mooing while fattened for the fall market.

Any idiot from Washington DC should know this is not the time of year to
hold a meeting in the West, but then again they were not here to listen to
landowners, property rights advocates, and those who thought this was their
country.

Representative Greg Walden, Oregon's most recent convert to
environmentalism, strode among the few ranchers who still believed in this
cowboy with hat but no horse. Greg betrayed his friends in Eastern Oregon
and is now campaigning for statewide office according to those who follow
and make money-chasing campaigns. That is why he is spending millions on
television ads featuring Multnomah Falls and a hand full of children. He
looks more like a Goldschmidt Pedophile than a cowboy from Oregon.

At precisely 8:00 AM, a federal employee went to work passing out slips of
paper. Each slip had a number and each person was told when their number was called they could appear before a central microphone in the hall and speak for no more than 2 minutes. I kept thinking "Two Minutes to Tyranny" would make a great title for a book about the Bush Administration and the needless loss of freedom (Patriot Act) and mobility (Price of Gasoline.) At the podium, Secretary of the Interior Kempthorp took command and introduced the six or seven listeners at the head table. All potentates from the Bush Administration and of course there was good ole Walden with his naked forehead and grinning face.

"We are here to listen" proclaimed the Secretary. "Please address your
comments to the issues listed in the handout" in other words no rhetoric
about the Constitution, private property rights, or things that we do not
want to hear about.

Out of three hundred potential speakers, the first thirty-four speakers
spoke. Only one asked for repealing the ESA. Twenty-three requested money
for Water Councils and grants for NGOs to buy land and conduct more studies.

A handful of Indians were present. They obviously believe the Natural
Resources of the Nation are going to be their domain and they are exempt
because of the exchange for wampum from the Casinos to pay for public
employee retirement systems. The Indians obviously have not learned there
lesson about dealing with the forked tongue devils of the government at any
level. They will soon learn that little has changed since Britain first
arrived in America.

My colleague, James Loftus rose and spoke as number 29. James, asked the
audience to hold up their hands if they were ranchers and farmers. ten maybe
fifteen at the most raised their hand out of three hundred. James turned to
the microphone, "Shame on you Mr. Secretary for holding these listening
sessions in the middle of harvest season." That was not a part of the
script. However, James only had 75 seconds to go. He explained how the tax
assessor approached him and threatened to levy 10 years of back taxes for
not farming his property. In exchange, the assessor offered to put his farm
under a "conservation easement" in exchange for avoidance of the tax
penalty. Well, no one at the table wanted to know about extortion either.

And James had no more time to explain.

The Secretary rose after the 34th speaker and announced the need to move on to Alaska where another listening session is scheduled. Nevertheless, the
remaining members of the Listing group will stay and listen.

The Cooperative Con is nothing more than a ruse put forth by our friends
from PACWEST Communications and our now silent neighbor Chuck Cushman. This thing smelled like Big Oil, looked like Big Coal, and sounded like Big Timber. The only thing that was missing was the presence of Tim Wiggly, but alas, he is no longer in Wilsonville, he now resides in new digs in WDC.

These multi-million dollar public relations gigs must be nice.

Please forward this to all your friends.