Pew Trusts’ Rapidly Expanding Power Base Is Worrisome
While the Pew approved and associated nominee to direct future fishery regulation moves steadily closer to confirmation and assuming the chair of power at NOAA, one of NMFS’ own Regional Chairmen accused the Pew Charitable Trusts of publishing “egregious misinformation and blatant nonsense” while preaching their Gospel of imminent fishery collapse by mid-century.
The comment came in a letter from Sean Martin, chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council directed to all regional fishery management councils.
Meanwhile, Dr. Lubchenco, a proud Pew Fellow and the happy recipient of large amounts of Pew financing and grants over the years moves closer to approval. Twenty conservationist groups, led by Oceana ($30 million in funding from Pew in the past 6 years) and Earthjustice ($12 million from Pew in the same period) have written to the government demanding swift confirmation for Lubchenco “on behalf of” their millions of members.
It’s the same old song, repeated ad nauseum. These groups sign up and solicit donations from millions of well meaning citizens by using dubious (at best) figures and completely false propaganda, then they use them as leverage in their hugely funded, well planned, smoothly executed and shamelessly manipulatory campaigns to force their will on the country.
One “report” the Pew Gorilla is using is called “Ocean Conservation and the End of Overfishing.” and as proof of its “extensive” credibility uses 17 footnotes liberally sprinkled throughout its few pages of simplistic picture book presentation. The problem is, most of them refer right back to other works by the Pew Ocean Commission and Pew-financed scientists. Another NMFS regional council director, Daniel Furlong, described the Pew report as “propaganda, pure and simple propaganda” and correctly observed (in my humble opinion) that it was simply aimed at signing up new members. New members which will then be cited by the Pew-connected officials in their tireless campaigns to close down American commercial fisheries.
(Read it and judge for yourself)
The Pew Gorilla is just beginning to flex its muscles, methinks. They see an opportunity with a new administration and have been making a well orchestrated grab for an enhanced political power base to enhance the influence already provided by their undeniable financial clout. Meanwhile, they are all too aware that the underfunded efforts by Commercial Fishermen’s groups to argue their cases will continue to be sporadic, poorly organized and widely scattered. Unless we do something to change some, if not all of that, we might as well just buy into the Banana business and content ourselves with feeding the gorilla.
The new CIA director, Leon Panetta, is another Pew tool. He was named Chairman of the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003 and still serves as a co-chair on the descendent of that commission. During his confirmation process a smoke screen was blown questioning his ability to run the CIA based on his lack of “intelligence experience” while the question of his conflicts of interest arising from his close association with a group like Pew who have such a strong and polarized political agenda was completely overlooked. Having the sitting CIA director and the sitting NOAA director in place will put the hugely rich Pew Trusts in more firm control of an alarmingly large amount of power in the new government and does not bode well for the American Fishing Industry.
Information from these sources was used to write this post:
Pew-backed Nominee Inches to NOAA Post by Richard Gaines for Gloucester Times
Wikipedia article on Leon Panetta
Pew Trusts’ “Picturebook of Propaganda”
