CARA: Living in the Soviet Union of America

Diane Alden for eco-logic

from http://eco.freedom.org/el/20010701/alden-2.shtm

July 2001 - Recently, the Moscow Times had a story about the new Russian Land Code. The bill spells out the way the sale of commercial and private land to Russian and foreign nationals is going to be handled.

According to the Russian Duma, no limits are set for the amount of land that can be owned by individuals and companies. The new code allows foreigners to buy land, but the thing the communists don't like is that 98 percent of the country could be sold off for private ownership. The only areas which would be excluded are parks, a FEW wilderness areas and military or government installations.

Then come back to the United States in 2001. A private property nation, supposedly free, where nearly two-thirds of the intermountain West is in federal hands. A "free" country where Bill Clinton federalized millions of acres of land before he left office. A country that prides itself on private property ownership, where a majority of the state of Alaska is now wilderness and basically off-limits to human use or enjoyment. A U.S. where 89 percent of the state of Nevada and 67 percent of the state of Idaho are controlled by federal agencies and bureaucrats.

In most intermountain states nearly half or more of each state is in federal control.

Meanwhile, we have a socialist like Ted Turner, who is the largest land owner in the U.S., continuing to accumulate land in order to "save" it for environmental reasons. He is one of the new oligarchs. Ted and others like him have a socialist bent. They run or support the Nature Conservancy or the Conservation Fund and some of them are Republicans or friends of the powerful. They are men like Republicans Paul O'Neill and John Turner. They also conduct themselves in the same spirit that is behind Turner's land grab.

These barons and well-heeled green organizations will eventually lead us toward the wet dream of EarthFirst! and the United Nations, the "Wildlands Project" (where half the United States is off-limits to human use except in certain prescribed corridors).

All this makes me wonder whether the Russian czar might not have been shot or lost his vast holdings to the Bolsheviks if he had been an environmentalist.

We are socializing and collectivizing our land in the U.S. We are doing it with the cooperation of the Republican and Democratic parties and Congress. The bill before our modern-day feudal barons and Bolsheviks is called the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA) HR 701, and it proposes to turn over even more land to government. It is the HMO of our era - a bad idea turned into bad law which eventually requires more bad law to fix it.

CARA is a response to the concrete-pouring going on, on both coasts. It is a one-size-fits-all solution to the fact that urban areas are being run over by more development than they want.

The new urbanites crave aesthetic values so they inflict policies specific to them onto the rest of us. Plenty of East Coast cities and West Coast urban areas are covered in concrete. However, most of America is still green, rural or small town and will remain that way unless the new Bolsheviks and barons get their way. The bi-coastal elite think that because they have fouled their nests they have to make sure others don't do the same thing. That is why they continually propose bad laws and regulations for the rest of us, a mentality so common in Washington, D.C.

They seek solutions to their problems by buying up flyover country and driving us into urban areas. In addition, their actions, bills, land grabs, parks and takeovers are making rural areas less hospitable to human beings. Life is becoming untenable for rural types because Washington and urbanites can't see beyond their own concrete jungles.

CARA, as the land groups call it, would be better named the Condemnation and Relocation Act because it will destroy what is left of rural America. The foolish Prince John feudal barons include Willy Tauzin, Democrat of Louisiana, and Don Young, Republican from Alaska, the authors of this mess.

According to sources, Tauzin and Young have cut a deal with the enviros. They will hand over a billion dollars per year for land acquisition, plus $200 million more for grant money for left-wing environmental groups. As if the greens already don't get hundreds of millions from tax-free foundations. They need your money, too, whether you like it or not. Meanwhile, Louisiana and Alaska are going to be living high off the hog, i.e., they get most of the federal pork for their respective states.

CARA will engender MORE land grabs under the Endangered Species Act. It will give money to enable the green wish list of land buyouts in areas where some green gremlin or federal agent has deemed an endangered species exists. The money will now be available to buy out the farmers in the Klamath Basin to protect a fish that doesn't need protection.

It will give money to train investigators who will go onto private lands in order to locate and police endangered species. Block grants will go to enviro groups to do this.

CARA, or HR 701, now includes state and federal condemnation or eminent domain of private land. So you guys living in Chattanooga or Asheville who think this isn't going to affect you - think again. Think Wildlands Project and no access or limited access of human beings to the federalized and museum status lands, which will be most of the land in the United States of America. It will be "protected" from the likes of you. Then think of Russian czars and the king's lands and consider what they used to do to poachers or the poor who dared trespass. As a few unfortunates have discovered recently, those who trespass on government lands, i.e., modern feudal lands, there is a heavy fine and possible jail time for that transgression.

Bobby Unser, the famed NASCAR driver, found out the hard way that getting lost in a blizzard on federal land which is closed to the public can get you in big trouble. Unser had to go to court and stand trial and was fined even though he nearly lost his life when he and his friend strayed onto parkland.

Similarly, a Montana rancher was fined thousands for killing a grizzly that was attacking his horses and then came after him. Think extremes and count on the greens and feds to reach it.

There are hundreds of similar stories coming in from all over the West as well as from some parts of the East Coast about the new green Gestapo patrolling the intermountain West.

CARA will give $3 billion per year for 15 years to buy out land and drive rural America further into despair and rural types out of their homes and off the land.

If your Congress critter says private property is protected, he is lying through his teeth because that is not how things work and you and I know it. Nothing they have created has ever been limited to the promises made at the time. NOTHING. When the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, Senator Hubert Humphrey swore up and down that it would only EVER cover 30 million acres. Since that time hundreds of millions of acres have gone into wilderness status.

Federal law is invariably carried to its most ludicrous extreme. The pressure for rural Americans to sell out will be enforced as our green bureaucrats will conduct a pressure and intimidation campaign with the zeal of an IRS agent after a promotion. Do not believe them.

You hunters who don't think this matters to you - get real. The next sign you see when you are off in Montana or Colorado after that big elk will say "off limits." The roadless initiative is taking hold and it WILL close off the land to you and your buddies. Just don't say you weren't warned.

Farmers will find themselves faced by condemnation as former farmlands are grabbed by greens and turned into wildlife refuges or open spaces are claimed to prevent urban sprawl. In other words, you are out of luck, Iowa or Ohio.

Inholders, people who have grandfathered land in federal areas, are special targets of this legislation. The elite groups like Nature Conservancy and Conservation Fund and other land trusts will benefit financially. Don't think this is all about saving the land. Lots of this is about land exchanges and making sure the elite still have access to prime areas.

Talk about class warfare - where are the Democrats now? Perhaps they're like Bruce Babbitt, whose recent actions for elite developers have shown just what a phony he is. These groups are waiting in line for a little of the land game action as well. They will benefit by these transactions and they will drive the farmer, rancher, logger, miner and 20-acre plot owner into the cities.

Billions of dollars of private land will be taken off local tax rolls, further driving rural America into poverty, and in the end we will have more rural ghost towns. If you Easterners think you will have more parks and campsites because of this legislation, they are fooling you too. Just look at what is happening in parklands like Yosemite. Camping is going to go the way of the dodo bird and those camping trips may be limited to your backyard and some few state parks - but don't even count on that. If your backyard is home to an endangered species, you may not be able to have access to that either. Many national parks and monument areas have put camping off-limits, and those areas will continue to grow in number under CARA.

CARA is a bad law that will only feudalize the land of the United States even more than it is. It is a land grab that would make Lenin proud. Next they will be funding Cossacks to purge the countryside of peasants. Forget it - they already have. They are called the Forest Service, BLM, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and in some cases the National Park Service. Our green bureaucrats are on your dollar closing off your land to an elitist and fatally flawed green dream.

It is amazing to me that Russia is getting closer to privatizing land while the U.S. is getting closer to collectivization. What happened, America? You've been listening to the comforting sounds of the National Geographic and PBS as they spin a dream based on half-truths and outright lies. A dream that will be a nightmare for all of us very soon.

Get that PriorityGram from NewsMax and send it off. Call your Congress critter and blister his or her ears. Numbers to call are 1-800-648-2516 or 202-225-3121 and let them know HR 701 is un-American. If you don't help your fellow Americans now, YOU will be next. Unless you want to live like ants in urban areas while a few live like pashas on federally approved estates, get going!

(Heroes of the day on CARA are Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo.; Patricia Callahan, President of the American Association of Small Property Owners; Mac Thornberry of Texas, sponsor of HR 1592, which will prohibit CARA funds from being used for condemnation; Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.; and Rep. Butch Otter, R-Idaho. Otter is circulating a letter that demands field hearings to be held on this latest land grab. Encourage your reps to sign it and to not sign CARA, HR 701. )

Thanks to American Land Rights and Flyover Country Institute for the facts in this article, along with the implications of this very bad bill. This bill is pork for a few areas and a tragedy for rural America. Let your Congress critter know how you feel.