{"id":22023,"date":"2011-08-29T05:56:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-29T10:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=22023"},"modified":"2011-08-27T19:58:44","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T00:58:44","slug":"friends-in-high-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=22023","title":{"rendered":"Friends In High Places"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week’s armed Federal commando raid on Gibson Guitars, over imported rosewood<\/em>,\u00a0left a couple of intersting questions<\/a>\u00a0(with emphasis bolded):<\/p>\n

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department\u2019s interpretation of a law in India.<\/strong> (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the Feds are now in the business of enforcing a law that India barely enforces?<\/p>\n

No, really:<\/p>\n

The Gibson facility wasn\u2019t raided over allegations of tax evasion, charges of embezzlement, or even something as drab as child labor. Not even close. It was raided over what the DOJ deems an inability to follow a vague domestic trade law in India (one that apparently the Indian government didn\u2019t seem too concerned about enforcing) regarding a specific type of wood. Not illegal wood, just wood with obscenely specific procedural guidelines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why would the government do this?<\/span><\/p>\n

Putting aside the presumably misguided motivation to enforce another sovereign nation\u2019s laws, why would a homegrown American company be the target of the Department of Justice in the first place?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth pointing out that Henry E. Juszkiewicz, Gibson\u2019s Chief Executive Officer, is a donor to a couple of Republican politicians. According to the Open Secrets database, Juszkiewicz donated $2000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN07) last year, as well as $1500 each to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Juszkiewicz also has donated $10,000 to the Consumer Electronics Association, a PAC that contributed $92.5k to Republican candidates last year, as opposed to $72k to Democrats. (The CEA did, however, contribute more to Democrats in the 2008 election cycle.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hm.<\/p>\n

I am a guitar player – and I know that Gibson is hardly the only company to build guitars out of Indian rosewood. \u00a0Indeed, it’s prized throughout the business.<\/p>\n

Could the reason be…politics?<\/p>\n

One of Gibson\u2019s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin\u2019s catalog, several of their guitars contain \u201cEast Indian Rosewood.\u201d In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson\u2019s guitars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So there you go.<\/p>\n

Stand with Gibson: They have the Law on their side, just not the government.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m a life-long Fender guy – but I’m going to save up for a Gibson next. \u00a0And I’m going to make sure a picture of me buying it goes to Barack Freaking Obama.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week’s armed Federal commando raid on Gibson Guitars, over imported rosewood,\u00a0left a couple of intersting questions\u00a0(with emphasis bolded): The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22023"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22025,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22023\/revisions\/22025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}