CONFUSING GOVERNMENT ENFORCEMENT OF POLICY

There seems to be a growing trend in government policy that either contradicts itself or confuses law-abiding citizens. I’m often perplexed as to why some federal, state and municipal laws and ordinances are enforced with what seems to be selectivity towards certain groups while other groups’ exhibit blatant disregard for ‘authority’ and are accommodated. Have you heard of the Rainbow Family? This group claims to be a non-organization without leaders or rules.

On their website, http://www.welcomehome.org/, the Rainbow Family offers this introduction to their ‘non-organization: “…the Rainbow Family means different things to different people. I think it's safe to say we're into intentional community building, non-violence, and alternative lifestyles... We gather in the National Forests yearly to pray for peace on this planet.”

The Rainbow Family has held gatherings, by their own accounting, of 14,000-30,000 ‘family members’ on national forest and public lands since 1972. The ‘non-organization’ openly admits they hold these gatherings without applying for a permit or with the approval of the federal or state agency within the jurisdiction where the event is held. Currently the group has set up camp in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. This year’s gathering is scheduled for July 1-7. Mark Rey, the federal undersecretary who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, traveled from Washington D.C. to Pinedale, Wyoming to meet with event organizers. Rey asked the group to consider moving the event somewhere else. The Rainbow Family refused. A few of the reasons the group gave objecting to the request to move are: the group has already laid four miles of pipe from a water source on public land to the site where they are setting up camp. This year’s event is expected to attract 15,000 family members to a national forest without the approval of the U.S. Forest Service. Rainbow organizers claim they have a right to water on public lands. One of the other reasons the group refuses to move was the construction of a dozen or more ‘kitchens’ in the national forest. The kitchens are ‘dug’ into the ground where a wooden pole and black plastic structure is constructed to help feed the hungry environmentally friendly mob.

Event organizers say the Forest Service is being unreasonable and didn’t give them enough time to relocate to another location.

A week after the Rainbow Family event the Boy Scouts are scheduled to set up camp in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The Boy Scouts are working with the Forest Service in a cooperative program teaching the Scouts how to ‘rehabilitate’ the forest. I think I know what area of the forest the Boy Scouts will be rehabilitating.

The Rainbow Family also has its own webpage with legal information asserting their rights and litigation against the U.S. Forest Service. Listed among the grievances the group has with the federal agency is deprivation of their First Amendment Rights, their right to assemble of public lands without permits and their religious right to smoke marijuana.

The Rainbow Family annual event on public lands isn’t the only gathering of this kind.
Are you familiar with the Burning Man Festival held on Bureau of Land Management land in Nevada? The Burning Man Festival is a celebration involving drug use, nudity, art, theme camps, and the main event: the burning of a 100’ tall ‘art’ sculpture that represents the evils of the capitalist, oil-hungry, environmentally unfriendly society we live in.

This event, started in 1986, held in the Black Rock Desert, near the small town of Gerlach, Nevada is expected to draw 48,000 or more to the 2009 event.
Burning Man organizers describe the event as: “Every year, tens of thousands of participants gather to create Black Rock City in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, and art as the center of community. They leave one week later, having left no trace.”

Gerlach residents and employees of the BLM refute organizers claim the event leaves ‘no trace’. Weeks after this environmentally friendly celebration, BLM employees and the Black Rock City Department of Public Works are in the desert cleaning up a humongous mess left behind, including a giant burn mark left on the desert floor and mountains of trash. I have to assume the Black Rock Desert is not inhabited by any endangered species for this event to have existed on BLM land for so long. Maybe the BLM allows the scorching and trashing of Black Rock Desert because of the revenue Burning Man generates for the federal agency. Guy Farmer, a reporter for the Nevada Appeal, writes the festival has netted its founders over $10 million dollars. In 2006 the BLM pocketed $843,000.00 from Burning Man. Residents of Gerlach now anticipate the dollars spent by aging hippies and naked attendees in town when the festival is held. Farmer reveals there is now a legal squabble among original founders who claim they are owed a piece of the Burning Man’s millions. Isn’t it sad when big money corrupts something as pure as burning something big on BLM land and leaving a mountain of trash behind in the name of self-expression?

On the municipal level, enforcement of city ordinances is just as skewed. Denver has declared the city as a ‘sanctuary city’ for un-documented workers from other countries.
In a humane effort to accommodate these new residents, the city now allows families to keep three chickens in their yards. The chickens must be hens and not roosters. Roosters violate a Denver noise ordinance. The reasoning for allowing chickens within the Denver city limits was to allow cultural diversity brought by the new comers to flourish.

In Los Angeles, California, radio talk show host, Terry Anderson, has taken up the fight to have the city enforce ordinances banning the raising of chickens and livestock within the city limits. The flood of un-documented workers into black communities in L.A. has residents complaining about chickens running loose on the streets and cattle being raised in backyards. Goats and chickens compete with shoppers on the sidewalks in front of local businesses. One resident complained about the slaughter of goats in his neighbor’s driveway. Anderson reports nothing has been done by the city to enforce the ban on livestock or the butchering of animals on the street. L.A. now allows the raising of chickens in backyards.

A Denver woman who raises bees at her home wasn’t allowed the same cultural sensitivity by the city. A young, environmentally concerned mother attended bee keeping classes over four weekends at the Denver Botanical Gardens. The classes were sponsored by the City of Denver. The aspiring young bee keeper started two hives in her backyard. The city even called her and asked her to remove a swarm from a city property, thus allowing her to start a third hive. The three hives were kept in the rear of her backyard, behind rose bushes. According to the young bee keeper, the bees didn’t bother her children while they played in the back yard and her neighbors didn’t complain about the bees.

One day a representative from the City of Denver came to her house and told her to get rid of the bees or face a $999.00 fine and a year in jail. Her story made it to Denver talk radio and the fight was on. The city relented on the threatened fine and jail time. Now the young mother has been scheduled for a hearing before the city to determine if her bees are legal within the city limits. According to bee keepers in Denver, the city has no ordinance banning bee keeping with in Denver city limits. I have to ask; why would Denver sponsor a class in bee keeping and then attempt to intimidate an individual who took the class and actually started keeping bees? I made some bird houses out of gourds last year and hung them in my backyard. I’m worried now that I might be on some list for violating some invisible city ordinance.

My reason for sharing these bizarre relationships between ‘environmentally conscience’ organizations and federal agencies is to illustrate what I and others believe about who works in many of these agencies. It’s my opinion that the green advocates and radical environmentalists that once found a home in many non-governmental organizations like the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy, now work for the Department of Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and other regulatory agencies concerning land use and the rights of American Citizens.

I doubt the residents of Catron County, New Mexico would be allowed to host an event on forest land attracting 15,000 ranchers and hunters opposed to wolf-reintroduction in the American West. I was thinking if I rode naked on an ATV, with a burning piece of art on the back, through the Lincoln National Forest, that I would gain some empathy from the greenies in the U.S. Forest Service. My wife would probably not approve of such behavior, as most of the people who read this newsletter would not. I do hope we realize and exploit this duplicitous enforcement of permits and use of public lands and national forests. Consider the irony in how federal policy is applied in the American West and elsewhere. It’s illegal for a rancher to shoot a wolf that is killing a family pet on his own property. Yet 15,000 individuals occupy a national forest, commandeer water and pipe it four miles away within that national forest, without a permit, build temporary structures in that national forest, refuse a request from a government agency to move, and nothing is done. Has anyone considered the emotional impact this event has on wildlife?
Wildlife PTSD will probably be the next criteria for listing a species on the Endangered Species list.

I going to start work on a 100’ tall Mexican Gray Wolf for some future earth friendly event. I need a place to burn it in the name of saving the planet. Let me know if you know of such a place.

Bruce Woodhull
bjwoodhull@msn.com
http//:oteroresidentsforum.blogspot.com


The Nevada Appeal and Casper Star-Tribune, as well as Wikipedia were used as source material for this article.