Sierra Club sued by board candidates over upcoming election
By TERENCE CHEA, The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Three candidates running for the Sierra Club's governing board have sued the powerful environmental group and its top officials, claiming they are unfairly trying to influence the group's upcoming election.
The three candidates - Richard Lamm, Frank Morris and David Pimentel - filed the lawsuit Monday in San Francisco Superior Court against the Sierra Club, president Larry Fahn and executive director Carl Pope.
The lawsuit comes during an increasingly bitter struggle between rival factions within the Sierra Club for control of its 15-member board of directors. Former and current club leaders say outside groups are trying to take over the club by electing certain candidates to the board.
Lamm, Morris and Pimentel are three of 16 candidates running for five open board seats in the 750,000-member group's election next month. The three men gathered about 400 signatures to get their names on the ballot, while eight of the other candidates were nominated by current board members.
The candidates claim the Sierra Club and its officials are violating California state law and the organization's own rules by supporting the nominated candidates over the petition candidates.
They want the court to bar the club from using resources to back certain candidates and sending out a notice warning members that outside groups are trying to influence the election.
"It's a question of a free and fair election," said Jim Turken, an attorney for the plaintiffs. "My clients are seeking a level playing field. That's all they want."
Fahn, the club's president, said the lawsuit doesn't have merit and distracts the club from its core environmental mission.
"Their basic motive is to muzzle the leadership from notifying members about what's happening in this election," Fahn said.
Full Version: Sierra Club Sued By Board Candidates
February 13, 2004
Old Guard, Old Smears
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
By KARYN STRICKLER
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- Philosopher George Santayana.
In the "Father Knows Best" decade of the 1950's, the voice of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy echoed through the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, "I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party."
The visual from the black and white television era fades, but echoes of that dark moment in American history remain etched in citizens' memories forever. Most Americans remember the McCarthy era as a lesson - not to be repeated. Apparently the moral from those bleak days was lost on thirteen former presidents of the national Sierra Club, who are interfering with this year's election for the Board of Directors.
There are two types of candidates in Sierra Club elections: internally-selected candidates called, "nominating committee candidates" and candidates who get members' signatures on a petition, abiding by all the rules in a grassroots, democratic process called, "petition candidates."
The thirteen former presidents, who are part of the old guard within the Club, put the bureaucratic, self-perpetuation of the Club above environmental protection. Their work appears on a website called Groundswell Sierra, giving new life to the dictionary definition of "McCarthyism."
They are indeed employing "the political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence," and using "methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition," within the Club.
The main target of these McCarthyite tactics is a faction of Sierra Club members called SUSPS (formerly known as Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization), whose followers believe that limiting US immigration will stabilize population levels, thereby protecting the environment.
There are indirect links between SUSPS and some rather unsavory, right-wing groups also advocating immigration restrictions, along with white supremacy and racial
purity. The key words here are "indirect links," because at least some individual SUSPS advocates seem concerned with human rights protections for immigrants. They support quota reductions from a deeply-held, environmental ethic, not from a right-wing political orientation, as has been charged.
The larger problem, which could have long-term, negative implications for democracy within the Sierra Club, is that any threat that may be represented by SUSPS-backed candidates has been imaginatively and indiscriminately expanded to include all petition candidates. The letter from the thirteen former presidents posted on Groundswell Sierra is a prime example and questions the credibility of all petition candidates with a broad brush of vague damnation.
The presidents' letter says that there is an organized effort to elect "outsiders" who want to capture the majority of Board seats in order to "move their personal agendas" - making McCarthy style leaps of guilt by association and assumptions based on vague links instead of solid evidence. A San Francisco Chronicle article said, "The bedrock issue...isn't immigration, but whether the club should be controlled by insiders or outsiders."
Chuck McGrady and Robbie Cox represent the old guard viewpoint. McGrady, the Sierra Club's vice president, a former president and a Board member, said he is middle-of-the-road on immigration, and has no problem with the debate. "But I'm very concerned about all these outside groups, from all across the political spectrum, getting involved.''
Former Sierra Club president and Board member Robbie Cox told the press that the organization "will be destroyed if 'outside forces' succeed in gaining control of the board of directors in April's elections."
Such attacks on petition candidates looks less like a defense against imminent peril and more like manipulation and election rigging aimed at candidates not hand-selected by the Club's nominating committee. This damages the Club's democratic and grassroots process - now and in the future.
Nothing in the Groundswell Sierra's effort has enraged the Club's rank and file activists like the presidents' letter's ultimate demand, directed to incumbent Club
president Larry Fahn. In stentorian prose soaring over the signatures of the thirteen past presidents, the letter asserts that the Sierra Club must intervene in the electoral process and smite down the unacceptable candidates who got onto the ballot by petition.
Beyond casting a vote, Sierra Club staff has always been strictly forbidden from any participation in Club elections, including the commitment of funds or other resources for or against any candidate. Nevertheless, the letter urged the Board to set aside the organization's by-laws and to advise members of the dangers of this attempted take over by "outsiders" and use "Club staff, mailing lists, publications and all other means available," to stop them.
Rodger Clarke, a member of the Club's Northeast Ohio Group, agrees that "SUSPS' anti-immigration agenda and candidates must be stopped and defeated," but "I am just as committed to seeing that it's done fairly and squarely. Otherwise, we risk doing very serious damage to the democratic nature of the Sierra Club that in turn could harm our credibility, and thus our work."
The letter drew an even sharper response from Don Young, former chair of the Club's Atlantic chapter in New York: "The people whom we have rightly perceived as top-down, staff-driven, control freaks are now prepared to take the ultimate step to control the Club, nakedly using our own dues money and the power of the staff to crush dissent."
Tim Hermach, president of the Native Forest Council since 1988 says, "The old guard are using their usual tactics of interference and obstruction of grassroots activists in this election."
Beyond these detrimental effects within the Sierra Club, the Groundswell tactics take the focus off of direct assaults on the environment posed by the Bush administration. Squelching all petition candidates' chances won't stop industry from taking the tops off of our mountains and dumping them into our streams or making our air and water human health hazards. The orangutan will still face extinction along with countless other endangered species and their unique habitat. Extractive industry will continue to destroy our public lands, profiting a few at the expense of many.
The old guard's tactics damage qualified candidates who are not long-time members and smear candidates only tenuously linked to SUSPS. Roy van de Hoek awoke one morning to find he had been transformed into a right-wing, anti-immigration zealot bent on taking over the Sierra Club. It said so on the Groundswell site.
Van de Hoek, a petition candidate and an immigrant who prizes his green card, was apparently the last to get this startling news. As a biologist and park supervisor, he advocates for urban parks and the steadily shrinking lot of California's natural flora and fauna. More recent political attacks called him a left-wing menace to the rights of property owners when he ran for the Malibu City Council.
"I've never taken a position on the immigration issue," he says. "I guess I'm on the hit list because people who belong to a Sierra Club group that works on population and immigration (SUSPS) and who also share my concern for wildlife asked if they could help collect petition signatures - they told me they didn't care about my position on immigration."
Fingering individuals like van de Hoek and other petition candidates is a bad strategy, because the mud-slinging, old guard do get some things right: Reducing the ranks of the rabble is - as claimed by the old guard - dear to the heart of reactionary demon-king Richard Mellon Scaife, - who has indeed donated generously to the population-immigration control groups on whose Boards several of the SUSPS candidates sit.
The "restrict immigration" folks are indeed eager to press their case in the Sierra Club. Thus, there really is a move afoot to put some SUSPS candidates who may have connections to individuals and groups that advocate a public policy idea that is philosophically muddled, politically obtuse and morally deficient into positions of power in the Sierra Club. If this move is successful, it may have negative consequences for the organization.
Instead of taking on this issue at a policy level, the old guard's response has been a clumsy, smear campaign, insulting the intelligence of the general membership, damning all petition candidates and attempting to pound the square pegs of left/right political ideology into the round holes of environmentalism.
The siren song of "immigration controls," has proudly liberal, deep-ecological adherents. Immigration control advocates currently on the Board are some of the people most consistently voting for strong, environmental protection. Attempting to tag the debate as a right-wing conspiracy is to lose the argument before they have begun.
In an unprecedented and outrageous move, the old guard on the current Board of Directors led by Chuck McGrady, caught on to the reality that the square pegs were not fitting into the round holes and entered the fray, passing resolutions that stopped short of authorizing the promotion of any particular candidates, and instead mandated that an insert accompany the candidates' ballot statements mailed to members that says:
"Outside, non-environmental organizations have endorsed candidates in the Club's Board elections and... are urging their supporters to join the Club as a means to influence club policy in line with their non-environmental agendas." A lengthy list of organizations followed, including <HempflagUSA.org>.
This caught my eye. As a Sierra Club petition candidate, I have 18 years of progressive statewide and national, grassroots advocacy experience on environmental and women's issues; executive-level skills in all aspects of nonprofit management; and international speaking and training experience.
When I sent out a notice about my candidacy, the webmaster of HempflagUSA, a casual friend, wrote to me and asked how he could help. I asked that he simply post my candidate e-mail on his various websites. And I put a link to the Sierra Club website telling people how they could become a member of the Club.
The old guard had already painted me as an outsider, but they were struggling to find a way to diminish my progressive leadership record. They sought a link between me and an outside group supposedly trying to take over the Sierra Club - they discovered HempflagUSA.
Voila! An outside group that advocates the legalization of marijuana was recruiting members to join the Sierra Club to support my candidacy. If the Communist Party happened to post my article, they would be listed as one of the invading groups as well - and so goes McCarthyism. Like victims of the blacklists, the Hempflag webmaster was shocked to discover that he's part of a plot - unbeknownst to him - to take over the Sierra Club.
For the record, legalizing marijuana will not be one of my platform issues at the Sierra Club. I will lead the way toward stronger enforcement of the Endangered Species, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. I'll work to end logging, mining, grazing and drilling on public lands; replace fossil fuels with renewable energy; and assure universal access to abortion, family planning and education. I'll advocate for slow growth and toxic waste site clean-up. I'll encourage increased funding and support to Club Chapters and Groups. While open, democratic debate remains crucial, I support continued Sierra Club neutrality on the issue of immigration.
The former presidents' letter was mysteriously leaked to the press. With articles espousing their viewpoint appearing in papers from coast to coast and around the world, their challenge has become international news, adding the publicity necessary to strictly conform to the dictionary's definition of McCarthyism.
Have you no decency, sirs? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
Karyn Strickler is the former Director of the National Endangered Species Coalition and is a petition candidate for the Sierra Club Board of Directors. Learn more at: http://members.cruzio.com/ . Strickler can be reached at: fiftyplusone@earthlink.net
Copyright 2004, Karyn Strickler.
Old Guard, Old Smears
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
By KARYN STRICKLER
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- Philosopher George Santayana.
In the "Father Knows Best" decade of the 1950's, the voice of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy echoed through the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia, "I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party."
The visual from the black and white television era fades, but echoes of that dark moment in American history remain etched in citizens' memories forever. Most Americans remember the McCarthy era as a lesson - not to be repeated. Apparently the moral from those bleak days was lost on thirteen former presidents of the national Sierra Club, who are interfering with this year's election for the Board of Directors.
There are two types of candidates in Sierra Club elections: internally-selected candidates called, "nominating committee candidates" and candidates who get members' signatures on a petition, abiding by all the rules in a grassroots, democratic process called, "petition candidates."
The thirteen former presidents, who are part of the old guard within the Club, put the bureaucratic, self-perpetuation of the Club above environmental protection. Their work appears on a website called Groundswell Sierra, giving new life to the dictionary definition of "McCarthyism."
They are indeed employing "the political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence," and using "methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, in order to suppress opposition," within the Club.
The main target of these McCarthyite tactics is a faction of Sierra Club members called SUSPS (formerly known as Sierrans for U.S. Population Stabilization), whose followers believe that limiting US immigration will stabilize population levels, thereby protecting the environment.
There are indirect links between SUSPS and some rather unsavory, right-wing groups also advocating immigration restrictions, along with white supremacy and racial
purity. The key words here are "indirect links," because at least some individual SUSPS advocates seem concerned with human rights protections for immigrants. They support quota reductions from a deeply-held, environmental ethic, not from a right-wing political orientation, as has been charged.
The larger problem, which could have long-term, negative implications for democracy within the Sierra Club, is that any threat that may be represented by SUSPS-backed candidates has been imaginatively and indiscriminately expanded to include all petition candidates. The letter from the thirteen former presidents posted on Groundswell Sierra is a prime example and questions the credibility of all petition candidates with a broad brush of vague damnation.
The presidents' letter says that there is an organized effort to elect "outsiders" who want to capture the majority of Board seats in order to "move their personal agendas" - making McCarthy style leaps of guilt by association and assumptions based on vague links instead of solid evidence. A San Francisco Chronicle article said, "The bedrock issue...isn't immigration, but whether the club should be controlled by insiders or outsiders."
Chuck McGrady and Robbie Cox represent the old guard viewpoint. McGrady, the Sierra Club's vice president, a former president and a Board member, said he is middle-of-the-road on immigration, and has no problem with the debate. "But I'm very concerned about all these outside groups, from all across the political spectrum, getting involved.''
Former Sierra Club president and Board member Robbie Cox told the press that the organization "will be destroyed if 'outside forces' succeed in gaining control of the board of directors in April's elections."
Such attacks on petition candidates looks less like a defense against imminent peril and more like manipulation and election rigging aimed at candidates not hand-selected by the Club's nominating committee. This damages the Club's democratic and grassroots process - now and in the future.
Nothing in the Groundswell Sierra's effort has enraged the Club's rank and file activists like the presidents' letter's ultimate demand, directed to incumbent Club
president Larry Fahn. In stentorian prose soaring over the signatures of the thirteen past presidents, the letter asserts that the Sierra Club must intervene in the electoral process and smite down the unacceptable candidates who got onto the ballot by petition.
Beyond casting a vote, Sierra Club staff has always been strictly forbidden from any participation in Club elections, including the commitment of funds or other resources for or against any candidate. Nevertheless, the letter urged the Board to set aside the organization's by-laws and to advise members of the dangers of this attempted take over by "outsiders" and use "Club staff, mailing lists, publications and all other means available," to stop them.
Rodger Clarke, a member of the Club's Northeast Ohio Group, agrees that "SUSPS' anti-immigration agenda and candidates must be stopped and defeated," but "I am just as committed to seeing that it's done fairly and squarely. Otherwise, we risk doing very serious damage to the democratic nature of the Sierra Club that in turn could harm our credibility, and thus our work."
The letter drew an even sharper response from Don Young, former chair of the Club's Atlantic chapter in New York: "The people whom we have rightly perceived as top-down, staff-driven, control freaks are now prepared to take the ultimate step to control the Club, nakedly using our own dues money and the power of the staff to crush dissent."
Tim Hermach, president of the Native Forest Council since 1988 says, "The old guard are using their usual tactics of interference and obstruction of grassroots activists in this election."
Beyond these detrimental effects within the Sierra Club, the Groundswell tactics take the focus off of direct assaults on the environment posed by the Bush administration. Squelching all petition candidates' chances won't stop industry from taking the tops off of our mountains and dumping them into our streams or making our air and water human health hazards. The orangutan will still face extinction along with countless other endangered species and their unique habitat. Extractive industry will continue to destroy our public lands, profiting a few at the expense of many.
The old guard's tactics damage qualified candidates who are not long-time members and smear candidates only tenuously linked to SUSPS. Roy van de Hoek awoke one morning to find he had been transformed into a right-wing, anti-immigration zealot bent on taking over the Sierra Club. It said so on the Groundswell site.
Van de Hoek, a petition candidate and an immigrant who prizes his green card, was apparently the last to get this startling news. As a biologist and park supervisor, he advocates for urban parks and the steadily shrinking lot of California's natural flora and fauna. More recent political attacks called him a left-wing menace to the rights of property owners when he ran for the Malibu City Council.
"I've never taken a position on the immigration issue," he says. "I guess I'm on the hit list because people who belong to a Sierra Club group that works on population and immigration (SUSPS) and who also share my concern for wildlife asked if they could help collect petition signatures - they told me they didn't care about my position on immigration."
Fingering individuals like van de Hoek and other petition candidates is a bad strategy, because the mud-slinging, old guard do get some things right: Reducing the ranks of the rabble is - as claimed by the old guard - dear to the heart of reactionary demon-king Richard Mellon Scaife, - who has indeed donated generously to the population-immigration control groups on whose Boards several of the SUSPS candidates sit.
The "restrict immigration" folks are indeed eager to press their case in the Sierra Club. Thus, there really is a move afoot to put some SUSPS candidates who may have connections to individuals and groups that advocate a public policy idea that is philosophically muddled, politically obtuse and morally deficient into positions of power in the Sierra Club. If this move is successful, it may have negative consequences for the organization.
Instead of taking on this issue at a policy level, the old guard's response has been a clumsy, smear campaign, insulting the intelligence of the general membership, damning all petition candidates and attempting to pound the square pegs of left/right political ideology into the round holes of environmentalism.
The siren song of "immigration controls," has proudly liberal, deep-ecological adherents. Immigration control advocates currently on the Board are some of the people most consistently voting for strong, environmental protection. Attempting to tag the debate as a right-wing conspiracy is to lose the argument before they have begun.
In an unprecedented and outrageous move, the old guard on the current Board of Directors led by Chuck McGrady, caught on to the reality that the square pegs were not fitting into the round holes and entered the fray, passing resolutions that stopped short of authorizing the promotion of any particular candidates, and instead mandated that an insert accompany the candidates' ballot statements mailed to members that says:
"Outside, non-environmental organizations have endorsed candidates in the Club's Board elections and... are urging their supporters to join the Club as a means to influence club policy in line with their non-environmental agendas." A lengthy list of organizations followed, including <HempflagUSA.org>.
This caught my eye. As a Sierra Club petition candidate, I have 18 years of progressive statewide and national, grassroots advocacy experience on environmental and women's issues; executive-level skills in all aspects of nonprofit management; and international speaking and training experience.
When I sent out a notice about my candidacy, the webmaster of HempflagUSA, a casual friend, wrote to me and asked how he could help. I asked that he simply post my candidate e-mail on his various websites. And I put a link to the Sierra Club website telling people how they could become a member of the Club.
The old guard had already painted me as an outsider, but they were struggling to find a way to diminish my progressive leadership record. They sought a link between me and an outside group supposedly trying to take over the Sierra Club - they discovered HempflagUSA.
Voila! An outside group that advocates the legalization of marijuana was recruiting members to join the Sierra Club to support my candidacy. If the Communist Party happened to post my article, they would be listed as one of the invading groups as well - and so goes McCarthyism. Like victims of the blacklists, the Hempflag webmaster was shocked to discover that he's part of a plot - unbeknownst to him - to take over the Sierra Club.
For the record, legalizing marijuana will not be one of my platform issues at the Sierra Club. I will lead the way toward stronger enforcement of the Endangered Species, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. I'll work to end logging, mining, grazing and drilling on public lands; replace fossil fuels with renewable energy; and assure universal access to abortion, family planning and education. I'll advocate for slow growth and toxic waste site clean-up. I'll encourage increased funding and support to Club Chapters and Groups. While open, democratic debate remains crucial, I support continued Sierra Club neutrality on the issue of immigration.
The former presidents' letter was mysteriously leaked to the press. With articles espousing their viewpoint appearing in papers from coast to coast and around the world, their challenge has become international news, adding the publicity necessary to strictly conform to the dictionary's definition of McCarthyism.
Have you no decency, sirs? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
Karyn Strickler is the former Director of the National Endangered Species Coalition and is a petition candidate for the Sierra Club Board of Directors. Learn more at: http://members.cruzio.com/ . Strickler can be reached at: fiftyplusone@earthlink.net
Copyright 2004, Karyn Strickler.
Sierra Club sucks!!! says so on my whip
The Sierra Club’s Immigration Wars
By Tom DeWeese
CNSNews.com Commentary
March 04, 2004
My recent commentary, "What part of "illegal'' don't Americans understand?" generated a lot of flack. Several responses called me a bigot. Others called me a Nazi. Most of the negative comments parroted the pro-amnesty party line that says illegal aliens are really just hard working, honest folks looking for a better life, simply taking jobs that Americans just won''t do.
One comment accused me of knowing nothing about the issue since I've never had to employ or deal with the issue. This writer was way off the mark because I recently owned a company that employed more than 40 Hispanic immigrants and I learned first hand about their honesty and work ethic.
All of my detractors missed the point. It is illegal to sneak across our borders and there are laws that say so. Let me share two excerpts from just a few of the letters I received from Hispanic-Americans on the issue. These are people who live daily on the front lines with the illegal alien invasion.
"This is one of the best articles on the Issue I have ever read. Thank you for enlightening my eyes to this great reality. I am originally from Brazil and have gone through arduous but fructiferous path in my legalization. By God''s grace I married a beautiful American who has made my process easier, but no less expensive. I have paid over $1,000 and so far I am still 7 months from receiving my green card and 3 years from becoming a citizen. But Tom, I tell you it is all worth it! To become a citizen of this great nation I would do anything within legal boundaries."
"To allow millions of "illegal immigrants'' to enter this country is to spit on my face and tell me that all I have gone through in these last 4 years is a worthless waste of time. I will continue to proclaim the sovereignty of this great nation in which, by God''s grace, I intend to be a part of."
The Bush Administration has proposed its "guest worker" amnesty program in order to court the Hispanic vote. The effort will backfire because illegals will never come to the Republican Party. It is the legal Hispanic immigrants like those who wrote to me who would naturally vote for President Bush but they too will turn away, outraged by the Republican disregard for their plight.
Laws make a nation by securing property and our way of life. Ignoring those laws for the price of a few votes creates an outlaw state. Those that have come here legally understand that fact, why doesn''t President Bush?
Immigration issues are generating an internal war within the famed Sierra Club. With the election of its Board of Directors coming in April, the Sierra Club is fighting a two-front war from within as activists from its right wing and left wing seek to take control. It''s developing into a war for the very soul of the nation''s largest environmental activist group.
From the right, activists seek to change the organization''s direction on immigration policy. Currently, the Sierra Club supports open borders to allow the flood of illegals into the United States. The group''s rational is that aliens from poor countries would do less damage to the environment here because the US can better cope with pollution. Therefore, says official Sierra Club policy, let them come. Never mind the cost to taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the Green "Sustainable Development" policy is enforcing "Smart Growth"; regulations on American cities, stopping development, controlling water use, and forcing Americans out of their cars in the name of a population explosion that exists only because of an open border policy! Now, some members of the Sierra Club have reasoned that support for such an immigration policy should end in order to protect the US environment.
Those members opposing the current Sierra Club leadership have now been labeled "extremists" that advocate the "greening of hate." Thus, according to current Sierra Club leaders, you are a hate monger and a racist if you support national sovereignty or protected borders designed to keep out law-breakers!
From the Sierra Club''s left---if such a thing is possible---comes another takeover effort by a real extremist named Paul Watson. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace who was later kicked out for endorsing increasingly violent tactics. Watson founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an eco-terror group that sails the seas armed with AK-47''s in search of fishing boats to ram and sink. He has openly claimed credit for sinking ten fishing ships.
Only a few years ago, reportedly Watson attempted to obtain a submarine that could lurk undetected under the water ready to sink unsuspecting whalers and fishing ships. Watson claims to have invented tree spiking as a tactic to stop the cutting of trees in the nation''s forests. Says Watson "there''s nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win."
Watson has declared his intention to take over the Sierra Club and transform it into an animal rights organization that takes a strong stance against hunting and fishing. It''s interesting to note that the Sierra Club leadership has not reacted with nearly the alarm to the possible takeover by a known terror advocate like Watson as they have against those who simply want to keep illegal aliens out of our nation. That fact alone says a lot about the true soul of the Sierra Club, no matter who''s in charge.
Does it matter who runs the Sierra Club? You bet is does! The organization has worked for years to impose strict rules on developing private and public lands in the name of protecting endangered species. Science and reason have had little to do with the outcome. With the power to file lawsuits and intimidate government bodies at every level, the Sierra Club dictates have now largely become government policies. Now they are reaping the fruits of their labor.
Just days after President Bush announced his "guest-worker" program, the number of illegals crossing the border increased dramatically. Apprehension of illegals in the San Diego area alone has since risen threefold. Of course, the Bush Administration argues that there is no connection between the two events.
Meanwhile, in the name of protecting national security, the Department of Homeland Security has initiated efforts to fortify heavy traffic sections of the Mexican border to try to slow the illegals from getting through. Fencing along nine miles of a key section of the border has been completed. The remaining five miles, including filling a half-mile of "Smugglers Gulch" to construct a road, remain in limbo. The new road would be used for border patrols, and maintenance, lights, sensors and cameras. The Border Patrol has already reported the finished section has made a major reduction in illegals getting through the area.
However, those efforts have been stopped by the California Coastal Commission, which says the new defenses would endanger the habitat of several rare birds. The Commission''s biological assessment said the project would "harass" one pair of least Bell''s vireos and a pair of Southwestern flycatchers. Three gnatcatchers would also be "harassed" along with several maritime chaparral on nearly fifty acres of land. Therefore, the government''s efforts to finalize the project to secure a major area of our borders is denied.
There''s no report yet on the impact from the flying feet of thousands of illegal immigrants as they race over the gnatcatchers nest. But then, such a report wouldn''t be politically correct, would it? The Sierra Club must be proud of the impact its policies are having on the quality of life for all Americans.
(Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, an activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Va.)
By Tom DeWeese
CNSNews.com Commentary
March 04, 2004
My recent commentary, "What part of "illegal'' don't Americans understand?" generated a lot of flack. Several responses called me a bigot. Others called me a Nazi. Most of the negative comments parroted the pro-amnesty party line that says illegal aliens are really just hard working, honest folks looking for a better life, simply taking jobs that Americans just won''t do.
One comment accused me of knowing nothing about the issue since I've never had to employ or deal with the issue. This writer was way off the mark because I recently owned a company that employed more than 40 Hispanic immigrants and I learned first hand about their honesty and work ethic.
All of my detractors missed the point. It is illegal to sneak across our borders and there are laws that say so. Let me share two excerpts from just a few of the letters I received from Hispanic-Americans on the issue. These are people who live daily on the front lines with the illegal alien invasion.
"This is one of the best articles on the Issue I have ever read. Thank you for enlightening my eyes to this great reality. I am originally from Brazil and have gone through arduous but fructiferous path in my legalization. By God''s grace I married a beautiful American who has made my process easier, but no less expensive. I have paid over $1,000 and so far I am still 7 months from receiving my green card and 3 years from becoming a citizen. But Tom, I tell you it is all worth it! To become a citizen of this great nation I would do anything within legal boundaries."
"To allow millions of "illegal immigrants'' to enter this country is to spit on my face and tell me that all I have gone through in these last 4 years is a worthless waste of time. I will continue to proclaim the sovereignty of this great nation in which, by God''s grace, I intend to be a part of."
The Bush Administration has proposed its "guest worker" amnesty program in order to court the Hispanic vote. The effort will backfire because illegals will never come to the Republican Party. It is the legal Hispanic immigrants like those who wrote to me who would naturally vote for President Bush but they too will turn away, outraged by the Republican disregard for their plight.
Laws make a nation by securing property and our way of life. Ignoring those laws for the price of a few votes creates an outlaw state. Those that have come here legally understand that fact, why doesn''t President Bush?
Immigration issues are generating an internal war within the famed Sierra Club. With the election of its Board of Directors coming in April, the Sierra Club is fighting a two-front war from within as activists from its right wing and left wing seek to take control. It''s developing into a war for the very soul of the nation''s largest environmental activist group.
From the right, activists seek to change the organization''s direction on immigration policy. Currently, the Sierra Club supports open borders to allow the flood of illegals into the United States. The group''s rational is that aliens from poor countries would do less damage to the environment here because the US can better cope with pollution. Therefore, says official Sierra Club policy, let them come. Never mind the cost to taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the Green "Sustainable Development" policy is enforcing "Smart Growth"; regulations on American cities, stopping development, controlling water use, and forcing Americans out of their cars in the name of a population explosion that exists only because of an open border policy! Now, some members of the Sierra Club have reasoned that support for such an immigration policy should end in order to protect the US environment.
Those members opposing the current Sierra Club leadership have now been labeled "extremists" that advocate the "greening of hate." Thus, according to current Sierra Club leaders, you are a hate monger and a racist if you support national sovereignty or protected borders designed to keep out law-breakers!
From the Sierra Club''s left---if such a thing is possible---comes another takeover effort by a real extremist named Paul Watson. He was a co-founder of Greenpeace who was later kicked out for endorsing increasingly violent tactics. Watson founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an eco-terror group that sails the seas armed with AK-47''s in search of fishing boats to ram and sink. He has openly claimed credit for sinking ten fishing ships.
Only a few years ago, reportedly Watson attempted to obtain a submarine that could lurk undetected under the water ready to sink unsuspecting whalers and fishing ships. Watson claims to have invented tree spiking as a tactic to stop the cutting of trees in the nation''s forests. Says Watson "there''s nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win."
Watson has declared his intention to take over the Sierra Club and transform it into an animal rights organization that takes a strong stance against hunting and fishing. It''s interesting to note that the Sierra Club leadership has not reacted with nearly the alarm to the possible takeover by a known terror advocate like Watson as they have against those who simply want to keep illegal aliens out of our nation. That fact alone says a lot about the true soul of the Sierra Club, no matter who''s in charge.
Does it matter who runs the Sierra Club? You bet is does! The organization has worked for years to impose strict rules on developing private and public lands in the name of protecting endangered species. Science and reason have had little to do with the outcome. With the power to file lawsuits and intimidate government bodies at every level, the Sierra Club dictates have now largely become government policies. Now they are reaping the fruits of their labor.
Just days after President Bush announced his "guest-worker" program, the number of illegals crossing the border increased dramatically. Apprehension of illegals in the San Diego area alone has since risen threefold. Of course, the Bush Administration argues that there is no connection between the two events.
Meanwhile, in the name of protecting national security, the Department of Homeland Security has initiated efforts to fortify heavy traffic sections of the Mexican border to try to slow the illegals from getting through. Fencing along nine miles of a key section of the border has been completed. The remaining five miles, including filling a half-mile of "Smugglers Gulch" to construct a road, remain in limbo. The new road would be used for border patrols, and maintenance, lights, sensors and cameras. The Border Patrol has already reported the finished section has made a major reduction in illegals getting through the area.
However, those efforts have been stopped by the California Coastal Commission, which says the new defenses would endanger the habitat of several rare birds. The Commission''s biological assessment said the project would "harass" one pair of least Bell''s vireos and a pair of Southwestern flycatchers. Three gnatcatchers would also be "harassed" along with several maritime chaparral on nearly fifty acres of land. Therefore, the government''s efforts to finalize the project to secure a major area of our borders is denied.
There''s no report yet on the impact from the flying feet of thousands of illegal immigrants as they race over the gnatcatchers nest. But then, such a report wouldn''t be politically correct, would it? The Sierra Club must be proud of the impact its policies are having on the quality of life for all Americans.
(Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, an activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Va.)
Round'm all up in that courtroom and 
I say let them tackle illegal immigration. That would leave less of the money for closing public land. 
Jon
Jon
WOW !, that is alot to take in for the average American citizen !, or is that " average American clueless taxpayer" !. 
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