4 responses to “Closed Mindfulness”

1. 

   Zombie Minstrel

   July 4, 2012 at 2:42 am

   Jeremy, you’re speaking about open-mindedness but are using language that’s narrow minded and and closed. “Those Hippies” and “we” and “these whatever” are closed minded unless you’re close minded which I’m seriously wondering about. Constructive, not deconstructive. The truth is the logging industry decimated our timber reserves while they were supposed to be self policing themselves in a free and open market in cahoots with the largest land owners in the state for 100 years. Now there are no timber conglomerates anymore, we have paper companies like Mead, Weyerhaeuser and Georgia-Pacific who were still all the same players from all the same families as before with different stripes. They’re all the Major stockholders and they have all conspired to make money on the backs of working people in this state with their monopolistic power.

   The Land owners? Let’s look at the King Family who owns the King estate Wineries one of the most prestigious wineries in the pacific north west. That family purchased an employee owned mill in central Oregon that employed thousands in the 80’s. It was so financially and fiscally healthy the retirement plans were payed out from in house which is unheard of. The problem was the employes ran it so well the assets were worth a fortune, just the trucks alone were huge dollars alone. You know what the King family did, they bought the mill and closed it the next day selling off the assets for a profit. I had family that worked there, I remember it well. The King family who were a well known logging family with over 150 years of proud history in Oregon promised the retiring board of trustees they would never sell, they lied. In doing so they put thousands out of work, some of whom were my kin.

   Now we have a group of inept politicians who have had the issue at a stand still for 20 years while the beetles from California are infesting the old growth forests we have left here killing off the trees and infesting more. We desperately need to cut those old growth trees out of the eco system but the politico psychobabble coming from Salem by this imbecilic 2 party system which is actually a 1 party system in reality for everyone but the people can’t get it together. The environmentalists are scared shite-less because they know if anyone but the state cuts old growth infestation they’ll cut more for profit, and they do all the time because again the laws and law makers are completely void of far to many skills they need to govern. The state can’t afford it, at least they say they can’t.

   In this state you can’t cut down any old growth trees right? oh but you can. You can take a piece of property, develop it and cut down anything you want and pay the penalty which is a fraction of the profit from the timber. Why the heck would you not cut it down if all you cared about is profit? Case in point, Bell properties inc. cut down an estimate 200 year old spruce right across the street from my property for absolutely no reason then to make a buck. It was on the creekbed and People came from miles around to see this tree, pick-nick under this tree, fish under this tree, have family birthday parties for their kids under this tree, it was beautifu and you couls see it from a long way. They paid Willamette county $1000 dollars as a penalty for breaking the law for cutting it down but harvested that spruce which was the size of a mini van at its trunk base. How much do you think Furniture and music instrument grade spruce is worth? It was worth $460,000 dollars Jeremy. That’s why we can’t have a free and unfettered timber market because the money people break the law here and it hurts families of working people every day for the wealthy and greedy. The very people who you are distressed by not having jobs, if you were a little older you might know what’s really happened to logging in this state because you’ve lived through it.

   I don’t like people being out of work anymore then you do but the facts are the wealthy of our fine state caused so much of what’s happened by their own hands and then used political tactics such as the spotted owl to lay blame on their mess. At the same time the environmentalists blew the whole thing up to stop these greedy people from cutting down everything, because they would of if they could have gotten away with it and the logging industry would be a non existent moot point. Both sides played politics at MY FAMILIES expense and it was us that bared the burden of foreclosures and Sick children who’s parents couldn’t afford food let alone a doctor.

   I wanted to note that in 2010 and beyond our state has exported more wood to the tune of over a billion dollars in 2010, more then it had in 20 years. Those figure rose in 2011 and are set to in 2012 as well. The logging industry is picking back up in our state, a fact that the mail tribune conveniently left out rather by stupidity or design. Sadly, we could log and protect the environment if you and I were running the specifics, but the people who are the players have to abide by the rules instead of buying of politicians in both parties to thwart any type of regulation. How many times do you see independent logging company’s clear cut for these big corporations along a whole mountain side but don’t replant saplings as the law states, they just pay the bale on the infraction they get because it’s cheaper. You know what happens in my county? The people come out and replant them because the sierra club is overburdened with replanting in this state.

   If you want change vote these fools out of office. Me personally, I’m voting against every encombrant state and federal in the upcoming election. Get rid of them all! I’m voting Ron Paul for President and Constitutionalist or Libertarian for their replacements. Good luck in your quest to get some people working, many desperately need it and any help the I’m sure they’ll be grateful for.

   Reply
   1. 

      jmac1989

      July 4, 2012 at 8:54 am

      I was tired myself, I should’ve used more proper terminology to describe the group, the population I was talking about. But at the same time I wanted to prove a point that someone else can think with “close mindfulness” as some of the individuals that put the group in a bad light and gives them a bad name towards someone like me. Now why don’t we cap timbers companies to a actual market? Like a salary cap for teams like in sports. I mean I wish we would’ve done that here in Oregon rather than cut it off and then bring it back, because we get outrage like this. Now, for me whom tends to only read what the media outputs put up on the net or on television that we don’t really hear about people like you and your family. For that I’m sorry I couldn’t illustrate that in some way in the blog and for people in my field.
      Now we need to find ways to make clear regulations for timber companies, if there not some already, to try to isolate the companies to those dying old trees that are affected by these beetles and by the elements, and possibly other trees that are slightly damaged from the element to prevent any future money spent to just go out there to do it.
      I agree with you that the environmentalist jump on any opportunity they can get to voice their opinion regardless if it makes sense or not (example of close-mindfulness). It does help either, as you said, that the state “doesn’t have the money” but can do a lot of things to “help booster” the state economy.
      In my personal opinion, as I mentioned earlier if we can cap and regulate this industry, and those 1-party morons in Salem can see this, then we can help booster jobs (decreased unemployment), increase money and benefits for those workers and take power away from the higher powers of the owners of the companies.

      Reply
      1. 

         Zombie Minstrel

         July 4, 2012 at 2:01 pm

         Without trying to hard to stereotype I have a feeling I’ve seen at least a few of the kids you’re speaking of. My girlfriend has family in Medford and Ashland both, and our kids are the same age as her sisters and her cousin. I really like it down there but it’s difficult to find work. Every time we’re visiting all the little anarchist grower kids from Jacksonville are out and about causing a muck. I’ve found them in Eugene and Portland too but they’re Americans and we have to all live in the same space. I think we live in the best area in the country but I’m biased by omission, there’s a lot worse things then dealing with goofy kids around campus and in town. You could be having drive by’s in your town.

         To Cap a market, any market you have to agree who is going to determine price regulation. There’s so much I’ll will associated with this issue that no one in the industry’s lobby or the environmentalist lobby can agree. Right now there’s no construction going on here in the states demand is low domestically, almost all of our demand currently comes from Japan because of the Earthquakes and Tsunami. This is why our sales output for timber has increased, they’re rebuilding. We also have a lot of timber that’s not ready to be harvested, the people that want to clear cut 25 year old timber are out of the mind as far as I’m concerned. That’s just bad business and stupidity all rolled into one.

         The bad blood, well there’s good reason for it plus it’s also the most evenly divided issue in the state as you probably well know. The money people didn’t deal in good faith and the environmentalists don’t trust them. At the same time it’s been 22 years and I think people on both sides of the issue need to quick screwing around with other peoples lively hoods and get off their backsides and lead. See now why my opinion is to vote them all out? It’s the mill workers and the loggers who are caught in the middle because the environmentalists and Corporate management won’t work together. You also have to look at all the mills too, so many are owned by big corporations where as 30 years ago they weren’t. I see both sides, I really do, but I don’t see leadership putting any serious effort into this and haven’t for a long time.

         As a pretty fair picker I’m sad that there’s not enough spruce to make guitar tops anymore or Mahogany for sides and bodies. Martin Guitar Co. said in 10 years they won’t be producing guitars with spruce. Taylor will though, ol’ Bob. Taylor Sr. went to the Indian reservation in Alaska and struck a deal for 100 years fro Spruce. That was smart and the tribal leaders thought that because they were for instruments and not doors in China it was worthy and in harmony with their goals and spiritual beliefs. The reason I bring this up is Bob Taylor is a Fundamentalist Christan, very Conservative and yet he was able to go to the tribe who lean to the left and middle much more so then the right and just work it out. Why that’s not happening here at home is no one’s putting in the effort which again leaves the loggers and mill workers out in the cold, not the environmentalists or the Corporations / owners.

         You really want to get hot, read about what’s been happening to Gibson in Nashville, TN. They’ve been raided twice by the feds and lost there entire warehouse of tone-woods some over 30 years old in the flood that hit Nashville in August of 2010 all in the last 24 months. Thanks to the feds there isn’t a Gibson electric guitar made in the USA that had a rosewood fretboard on it anymore. Yet Gibson can legally make them in Mexico or China and use the same rosewood that the feds have confiscated twice in production then import them into the US and sell them.

         There’s 3000 jobs in that Nashville facility and no one wants a Les Paul with a “Baked Maple” neck, they sound horrid so their sales are in the trash can. However their Epiphones that are Made in China and Japan are selling better then ever. That’s just dumb, you watch Gibsons going to move to Canada and take the worlds most talented luthiers with them. I’ll bet you a six pack! That’s a lot of Tax revenue too. Spending $860,000,000 for the ATF busting pot clubs in CA in 2011 when 82% of Californians voted it otherwise is just as foolish. Our country is broke because we bailed out a bunch of criminal bankers in a free market, There’s no jobs and this is how our elected officials are going about doing business. We need to sweep shop before these idiots make all our jobs go off shore.

2. 

   Zombie Minstrel

   July 4, 2012 at 2:49 am

   Sorry for all the typos, I’m really tired Jeremy.

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