If you’re a guitar player you know the heritage and workmanship that goes into one of the best guitars made in the world, the Gibson. The Gibson Guitar Company and C.F. Martin & Company are the essence of why the “Made in the USA” label used to mean best-of-the-best in manufacturing. Both Gibson and Martin have been making the world’s best guitars in the United States for more than a hundred years. If you’re into guitars, your bucket list includes owning a Gibson.
The craftsmanship that goes into Gibson is world renown, and as manufacturing in the U.S. has slowly dissolved every guitar sold by Gibson is still hand made by Americans. Now Gibson is a study in why a business-unfriendly environment is one more reason that companies move manufacturing operations overseas. The loss of Gibson would not only represent another devastating loss of jobs in the manufacturing arena, but a cultural loss for the nation.
Two weeks ago, agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security stormed the corporate headquarters and two factories of the Gibson Guitar company seizing 24 pallets of Indian rosewood and ebony, guitars and computer files. While illegal aliens are flowing through our porous borders, our government is locking down one of the country’s oldest manufacturer’s because some questionable wood slipped through the border.
The government is claiming that Gibson illegally imported the exotic wood used in the manufacturing of the company’s guitars. According to U.S. law, American companies must abide by the laws of source countries when importing products. Virtually every other country in the world has stolen American technology but we’re expending taxpayer dollars because a few rare chunks of wood showed up on our shores? Now please re-read the last paragraph; with the 10th anniversary of 911 coming up this weekend our Homeland Security department is protecting us from the horrific threat of illegal wood!
The government says the law Gibson is suspected of violating is intended to protect endangered species of wildlife and plants. U.S. Fish and Wildlife claims that the wood found at Gibson was illegal to export from India and therefore illegal to import into the United States. People stroll into the U.S. across the southern border on a daily basis, but illegal wood, we’ve got that covered!
It gets better. The government says that because the wood was unfinished it’s illegal, but had it been finished by Indian workers, it would’ve been totally legal to import. So while thousands of American jobs have sailed over to India, our government is protecting Indian workers and punishing American workers. It’s enough to make your head explode.
Chief Legal Counsel for Gibson summed it up for the melon-heads in Washington, “I think they’re taking the position that we should be shifting these jobs overseas. We have probably 40 people in our factory here in the USA who are doing the inlays into the fingerboard … that are putting the frets on. If all that was to be done over in India, then those jobs would be lost.” Are there American unions in India?
The Deputy Director General of Foreign Trade for India claims the U.S. government is full of bologna. In a letter dated July 13th the Deputy Director said that India is perfectly happy to ship the unfinished wood to the U.S. and confirmed that “fingerboards made of rosewood and ebony is freely exportable.”
Even though India is fine with the exportation of the wood, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Administration is now keeping mum on the matter and our illustrious Department of Justice, that is busily selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels, has its own version of Indian law. So even if India is fine with it, our out-of-control government is now jumping the ocean to interpret Indian laws; it would be humorous if not for the sickening precedence it sets.
And then we move on to political corruption. Even though Gibson is using the same wood that many U.S. manufacturers and importers for other guitar companies use, why is it that Gibson alone is being targeted? Start smelling a 300 pound rat, cause it’s on the loose!
Two years ago Gibson was raided for the same supposed offense, the difference is that in 2009 the supplier was Madagascar. Gibson maintained at that time that the wood was procured through legal channels, but U.S. Fish and Wildlife argued that the company could not adequately prove that the wood came from lawful sources. That matter remains with the DOJ and Gibson is fighting for the return of the wood seized in 2009. With Gibson and the U.S. government in a heated battle over the 2009 invasion of Madagascar wood, could it be that Gibson is now on the DOJ’s or White House enemies list?
And then there’s the political inclinations of Gibson’s CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz who is a Republican and has contributed to Republican candidates; the other guitar companies that have not been targeted are led by Democrats.
This is what happens when a government grows to such proportions that it must find villains to justify its bulk. What better target for vilification than your political opponents. The government’s actions are likely to cost Gibson over $10 million and could well end in the loss of American jobs. This is beyond disgusting.