A Quiet, Unnoticed War

PFNS, Alamogordo, NM How ironic! A paper publishing last week's TRACKSIDE entitled it "A Quiet, Unnoticed War." Published opposite was an article headlined: "USF&WS Seeks Habitat Designation For 'Shiner.'" It was so kind of the editor to provide a local example of the war being waged against private property rights by the "Guardians." A habitat designation for the poor Topeka Shiner, a small fish, seems so innocuous. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Once the designation is made, under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) the federal government - and the eco-fascists pulling the Feds strings - gain complete control over how the land within the habitat can be used. They also gain control over adjacent land when activities on the land are deemed to have an adverse impact on the critical habitat. Designating critical habitat is a standard tactic for Wildlands Project disciples, a first step toward ultimately locking up land and banning its use by humans.

The article noted that the critical habitat proposed covered 186 stream segments. Does not sound all that bad, does it? Unfortunately, the 186 stream segments encompass 2,230 river-miles in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Those numbers were cited in a gloating press release issued by The Center for Biological Diversity, a co-plaintiff along with the Biodiversity Legal Foundation in the lawsuit that forced the feds to propose the designation of Topeka Shiner critical habitat. Laid out over our dendritic and mature stream patterns, the designation, if it is adopted as proposed, will spread the Feds control over many thousands of square miles.

The courts are prime battlefields in the war. The greens are adept at suing the clerks and getting them to roll over to do what they wanted to do in the first place. The Biodiversity Legal Foundation and The Center for Biological Diversity are just two of the point-man organizations in the campaign to gain control of your property - and thus make you dependent on the "Guardians" for your very existence. If you doubt that ESA-based lawsuits represent much of a threat to your constitutional rights - or your life, do a web search for articles mentioning either of these two groups. You will be inundated with article after article describing lawsuits brought to use a critter and the ESA to gain dominion over coveted land. From Tumbling Creek Cavesnails to Columbian Sharp tailed Grouse, from White Marlins to Preble's Jumping Mice, from Selkirk Grizzly Bears to Scaleshell Mussels, from Carson Wandering Skippers (a butterfly) to the Spalding Catchfly (a plant), they're all there. A good portion of the country is already caught in the ESA web. At the rate the suits are being brought, The Wildlands Project will come to fruition faster than its creators could have dreamed. A year ago, TRACKSIDE reported that The Center for Biological Diversity had filed an ESA lawsuit every 32 days for the past five years and had 32 lawsuits in progress covering more than 80 million acres. They have not slackened their pace, including a lawsuit to prevent the use of the mosquito-killing pesticide Fenthion...West Nile anyone?

Let me refresh your memory regarding how Karl Marx proposed the establishment of a communist state in western democracies. Wait! Please do not tune out. Yes, the descriptive name communism may be out of vogue, but its tenets live on in its current adherents, the "Guardians" who believe they are preordained to lord it over their fellow citizens. The "Guardians" are very much alive and working to eliminate your freedom. Marx taught that to gain power, the State had to control the land and tear apart the family. Through the course of recent history, the strategy to achieve absolute power has been to create doubt and confusion in the existing society and political system, then step in as the savior. Once in power, the mask comes off and tyranny descends on the land. Repeatedly, the "Guardians" have centered their machinations on the family and private property.

The ownership of land is the cornerstone for economic freedom and the cohesiveness of the family is the bulwark of our society. With the environmental laws that have been imposed on us, allowing the "well-being" of Gaia and critters to trump private property rights, the "Guardians" are slowly but inexorably applying Marx's get-control-of-all-land tenet. Our "Guardians" are also waging a war against the American family, this time wearing not a green crown, but their self-designed tiara of political correctness adorned with multi-culturalism, diversity, and relativism. The war is just as real as the war to strip you of your ability to own land and use it for your own benefit. Perhaps next week this machine in front of me will talk to the tactics and battles in the war on the family.

The scourge of the West moves East........

NAW He's been there for a while now......

Pariah, Florida: Feds Use Water as Weapon
Letter to Paragon Foundation
March 4, 2002
by Madeleine Fortin

Rural American Under Siege
Mr. Bob Jones, President
Paragon Foundation
1200 White Sands Boulevard, Number 10
Alamogordo, NM 88310

Mr. Jones;

Mr. Walley suggested I write to you and tell you the story of my community and ask for your help. The community I live in is called the “8.5 Square Mile Area” by government agencies. I call my community Pariah, Florida. It lies along the eastern edge of Everglades National Park. Several thousand people live here. For the most part they’re Cuban. They came here from Cuba because they believed that they would be treated with fairness and honesty by our democratic government. Little did they know what was going to happen to them. The community is made up of small, family owned farms and ranches. Most farms are five to ten acres in size. Over half the land in the community is used for some form of commercial agricultural production. We produce tropical fruit and winter vegetables, herbs, cut flowers and honey. People have plant nurseries. They raise pigs, goats, horses and chickens.

The area has been granted flood protection by Congress on three separate occasions, but because of radical environmentalists hiding in state and federal government agencies my community has been flooded unmercifully since 1994 in an effort to force people to become “willing sellers.” In the process of flooding us the government agencies involved in “restoring” the Everglades have managed to flood the entire Miami-Dade County area twice in a one year period. So far there has been at least $1 billion in flood related losses and 14 flood related deaths throughout the urban and agricultural areas of the county. The agricultural community in the southern part of the County is literally on it’s knees. Fifty year old avocado and mango groves are dead. To the government they’re just more “willing sellers.” Flooding has destroyed my community’s way of life. Over half the 55 miles of unpaved roads in the community are no longer passable to regular vehicles. Year after year, people have lost crops, orchards and livestock. The flooding is not a natural event - it has been engineered by the government agencies that are supposed to be “restoring the Everglades.” As one man who was forced by the flooding to become a “willing seller” said at a public meeting, “You use water as a weapon!” Another man told me just before he sold his home to the government, “They’ve killed the American Dream.”

In 1989, Congress passed the Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act. This Act told the park it could buy up all the vacant land in Northeast Shark River Slough. It also told the Corps of Engineers to do two things: provide the park with a more natural hydrologic regime, and to protect the communities that would be impacted by this. The exact legislative language reads, “The Secretary of the Army is authorized and directed to construct a flood protection system to protect the developed land within such area.” (PL 101-229, Section 104, paragraph 2c)

The Corps developed the Modified Water Delivery Project to do what Congress had ordered. This project was Congressionally approved and fully federally funded in 1992. How could they screw this up?

In 1994, all forward movement on our little flood protection canal stopped. It seemed the park wanted a “buffer zone.” In the years since then the Corps has developed a “compromise alternative” which puts a canal up the most populated street in the community. This leaves half of the community unprotected and costs over three times as much as the original project. The Corps doesn’t even have Congressional authority to condemn land outside the foot print of the original project and funding for the project is uncertain. In the process of choosing this “compromise” solution the Corps, along with it’s allies, the National Park Service, the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Corps local sponsor, the South Florida Water Management District, has committed fraud, violated NEPA, abused the Endangered Species Act, committed numerous violations of it’s own administrative procedures and wasted over $15 million in tax money-all in an effort to take our homes and farms away from us!

It’s bad enough for the government to do this us, but in the process of holding up completion of the Modified Water Delivery Project, the involved agencies are unable to release water into the park in the volumes necessary for ecosystem functioning. Rather than let the excess water out to tide, the water is being stockpiled in the state owned Everglades north of the park. This has turned the area into an inland sea. More than half the tree islands are dead and endangered species are being impacted. Because of the hydrology of the area, water stockpiled above the surface in one place will soak into the ground and raise the ground water throughout the County. When there is a heavy rainstorm the water has nowhere to go and the entire County floods. The agricultural area just south of my community has been devastated by the flooding.

It seems that all over the United States rural communities are under siege. Excessive regulation in the name of “preserving the environment” prevents reasonable use of our land while unfair trade treaties flood our markets with cheap foreign produce. Small rural communities are often poor, sparsely populated and politically powerless. How can we protect ourselves from the actions of our own government? Perhaps if other communities like mine can band together we can make our voices heard in Washington. This letter is a formal request for assistance from the Paragon Foundation. Can you help us with media support? If we had access to the media we might be able to get enough nation-wide support to turn the tide before it’s too late.

Thank you for your interest in my community’s problems. I hope we can work together.

Madeleine Fortin, President
East Everglades Legal Defense Foundation
21801 SW 152 Street
Miami, FL 33187
phone 305-255-7098
mfortin@bellsouth.net

J. Zane Walley, Advocate For Rural America
A Paragon Foundation Grantee

"The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to." Thomas Jefferson

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Article provided by a Paragon Foundation grant, 1-877-847-3443

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