Posted on 09/01/2011 4:47:56 AM PDT by blueyon
Gibson CEO: Obama Administration Told Us Our Problems Would Go Away If We Used Madagascar Labor (Audio).......KMJ Radio host Chris Daniel interviewed Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz on Wednesday. Juszkiewicz told Chris that the Obama Administration told them, “Your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
Beck is interviewing the Gibson CEO right now on his show.
Yes, and I can understand why you would be concerned about sources.
There are two incidents involved. The first was the 2009 raid involving Madagascar Ebony and the second were the three (two Gibson plants and the thirty-party warehouse) 2011 raids involving East Indian Rosewood.
The most comprehensive information regarding the 2009 Madagascar Ebony raid is found in the affidavits, search warrant, complaint, exhibits, and other filings in U.S. v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms, Case No. 3:10 CV 00747 (Middle District Tennessee). These are available online at www.pacer.gov, which is where you can find filings in federal court cases and other federal matters. You can access them by using the case number or the style (name) of the case.
Here's the rub: You have to pay by the page to access and view or download each document to your computer. I can't give you a link to the specific documents, but I've paid for them and downloaded them. What you're looking for is the Affidavit of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent Kevin L. Seiler and the attached documents, and the August 9, 2010 Complaint in Rem.
Here are some articles regarding the Madagascar Ebony situation. I these with a grain of salt, just as I do Gibson's press release and the government filings:
Endangered Species Trafficking: What Did Gibson Know?
Gibson Guitar Working with Rainforest Alliance on Wood Sourcing Legality (interesting, only in that Gibson worked with the Rainforest Alliance on a method to source wood legally after being raided the first time)
Federal agent: Gibson wood investigation likely to result in indictments
Gibson Guitar raided but lips zipped (see bits on ongoing litigation)
Nashville, Memphis Gibson plants raided againRainforest Alliance speaks out on Gibson (FSC does not cover wood from Madagascar)
There are tons of other articles out there, and these don't even address the generic articles on the illegality of logging and exporting Ebony and Rosewood from Madagascar that pre-date Gibson's purchase and the raid. The key details, though, are in the court filings and exhibits that you'll need to get from www.pacer.gov.
You'll notice how many of these articles are about the August 2011 raids, but mention the 2009 raid and the pending lawsuit, including the possibility of indictments against Gibson executives and employees. I believe some even mention the fact that the case was sealed (likely in preparation of the criminal indictments). Yet with all of these articles - from Nashville's newspaper - bloggers and posters are screaming "the government hasn't even taken legal action yet!"
As for the current raids:
Details from the Gibson Search Warrant
Special Agent John Rayfield's Affidavit in Support of Search Warrant
Here's who Luthier Mercantile is. They're a place that you or I might order a guitar-building kit from. The fact that they're involved in the chain of incorrectly designated "ultimate consignees" doesn't mean that, as a fact, something was illegal. It just makes these last shipments through Dallas and Canada curious.
Are there other things I've said for which you want sources?
This is called “free trade” and the people who have wrecked our economy via this globalist wealth redistribution are called free traitors.
If you’ve been following the ‘free trade’ threads over the years, you’ll understand.
It is both democrat and republican caused.
Thank you for the information to go through. I appreciate it. I guess there is no chance you could scan the information you paid for so I or others could read it?
And of course they've used it for the sides and back of acoustic guitars but (a) Gibson rarely uses rosewood as a tonewood on its acoustics, and (b) veneer is legal under India's HTC.
Even Collings Guitars, a non-union shop in Texas, which is always left off the list of other guitar companies because, perhaps, well, perhaps because it's non-union and and in a right-to-work state, so putting it on the list wouldn't support the bloggers' idea that this is entirely about unions and right-to-work states.
I think the whole East Indian Rosewood thing started because it simply looks like Gibson was trying to sneak the wood into the country.
My guess is that India adopted a Harmonized Tariff Code that says one thing and has never enforced it.
I worded that poorly, and I apologize. What a government's laws and regulations say in writing and what a government does are often different.
I've seen India's Harmonized Tariff Code and I've seen HTC for the U.S. I doubt there's one person in India who knows that whole HTC. He or she may know one chapter, but not the HTC.
It looks like one of those things your parliament, or legislature, or whatever, adopts on one day - and then the next day you immediately break it with however you handle your exports and imports.
Personally, I think the government's position on East Indian Rosewood is probably nonsense, IF we were to look at how business is actually done, and not at the HTC. I also think the whole thing started because of a suspicious shipment in Dallas that didn't have Gibson's name on it. When the Fish and Wildlife guys pulled in Luthier Mercantile in California to get the paperwork finished and found out it was really a shipment for Gibson, it looked suspicious - a company currently involved in litigation over alleged illegal importing of wood, now using proxy to import East Indian Rosewood in containers that didn't correctly describe what was in them.
I wish I played guitar - - so I could buy a Gibson...
http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011/08/31/doj-advises-gibson-guitar-to-export-labor/
CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?
HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that it a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes
The federal government other than for national security should be your Mom and Dad and tell the citizens that they may not conduct commerce with an overseas supplier.
Statism is always Cool.
http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011/08/31/doj-advises-gibson-guitar-to-export-labor/
CHRIS DANIEL: Mr. Juszkiewicz, did an agent of the US government suggest to you that your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of American labor?
HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that in a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: Excuse me?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: They actually wrote that it a pleading.
CHRIS DANIEL: That your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor?
HENRY JUSKIEWICZ: Yes
In the case of the East Indian Rosewood, no.
The Madagascar Ebony's another matter.
Madagascar is an extraordinary place. It's that giant island off the southeast coast of Africa. Some biologists will tell you that there are eight continents instead of seven - they count Madagascar as a separate continent.
Why?
80% of the plants and animals found on Madagascar are found nowhere else on earth. All the unique animals in Madagascar are the reason why Disney picked Madagascar as the site for its animated movies called, well, "Madagascar." You know, all the lemurs and stuff.
9,000 species of plants are found only on Madagascar. Seven entire families of plant are found only on Madagascar. All of the lemurs in the world. Every single species of lemur. Six of the world's baobob species - only on Madagascar. Approximately 750 orchid species, found only on Madagascar. 165 types of palm trees are found only on Madgascar (the rest of Africa only has about 60 species in total). I could go on, but the deal is that Madagascar is the most unique place on earth.
Environmentalists talk about destroying the "rainforest" (it's jungle, folks) in Brazil, yet a zillion acres of rainforest still exist. In Madagascar, 90% of the jungle has been destroyed.
Rosewood and ebony trees don't grow in groves; you have to tear down a bunch of the jungle to get to the trees. The government has made logging essentially illegal for years and years, but armed rebels log in national forests. The logs are illegally loaded onto French ships, routed through a couple of known ports in other countries, then taken to China or Germany and "laundered" with false paperwork. You see, you can take rosewood or ebony out of Madgascar if the Minister personally authorizes that one, single shipment. And if it's logged in a special record book. But once you get the wood illegally out of Madagascar on a French boat and headed to China or Germany through a foreign port or two, with forged paperwork from the "Minister", who's going to know if there's a record in the official Madagascar book, or if the paperwork is genuine?
And we haven't mentioned the 2009 military coup of the government yet and how that affected illegal logging. Or how there's so much money to be made in removing forest that Madagascar ebony and rosewood are referred to as the new "blood diamonds' of Africa.
So, Indian Rosewood - doesn't hurt anything. It's just a policy decision. Madagascar ebony and rosewood? I'm not worried much about snail darters and spotted owls. Those are single species. In Madagascar, you're talking about wiping out thousands of unique plant and animal species.
Here's the context in which that comment was made.
You can't export raw Madagascar rosewood or ebony out of Madagascar except with a specific exception for that one shipment from the Minister of Madagascar.
However, the Madagascar government allows certain Madagascar tradesmen to make products out of ebony and rosewood if the fallen logs are recorded in the government records, such as those knocked down in a storm, or felled before a certain date (I think it's 2004, but I'd have to check on it). With the right paperwork, those handicrafts and manufactured products can be exported. But not the raw wood.
Gibson imported the raw wood to make its own fingerboards. The government's position - in response to an argument made by Gibson - was that there was a potential legal source for Madagascar ebony fingerboards. Gibson could buy fingerboards made in Madagascar by Madagascar labor. Because Madagascar could issue a permit for those to be exported. Gibson didn't want to play by those rules.
“...Best thing Americans can do for our economy is to send Obama’s poll numbers down to the gutter....”
Along with Obama himself.
The GOP should run with this.
I do..... You can buy me one!
It's already in digital form, so I wouldn't have to scan it. If you want to contact me privately, I can email you items that you want.
The whole thing for me is that I'm amazed at how people are taking everything Gibson says as 100% pure Gospel truth. I don't trust the government 100% and I don't trust Gibson 100%.
Is the Obama DOJ capable of this? Yes.
Is it just as likely that a disgruntled current or former Gibson employee is giving the government information on Gibson? Yes.
In 2009, out of 11,000 companies (including places like Best Buy, United Airlines, Morgan Stanley, etc.), Gibson was ranked by its employees as the #1 Worst Place to Work in the U.S. If you read the comments of its employees, much of the wrath is directed at Henry Juszkiewicz by name (or title, CEO). In 2008, Gibson was ranked the #5 Worst Place to Work in the U.S.
I've never worked for the government; I've never worked for Gibson or its competitors or anyone in the music industry; I'm a guitar collector. If you're looking for somebody to rat out Gibson - with lies or truth - you don't have to look much further than its former and current employees and executives.
Maybe the guitar gods will finally see the light and push back.
How can the US DOJ act on a US business based on Indian Law? It has no authority to enforce Indian law?
Are the individuals (at DOJ) involved personally liable, since there can be no claim that they are acting in their capacity as representatives of the US government?
Educate the buyers. The earth will survive us.
I think we should mandate that civilization be rolled back to back to the 1700’s when passenger pigeons darkened the air for days and the buffalo herds stretched as far as the eye could see and a squirrel could travel from the Mississippi to the East coast without touching the ground.
Seriously, educate the buyers. If it is indeed that serious of a problem, show them what they are doing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.