Gov. Perry Stands With Gibson Guitars

Perry Stands With Gibson
During a campaign stop in Memphis this week, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry adeptly played to the rhetoric of unrest reverberating around Tennessee and beyond as a result of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s raid on Gibson Guitars.
Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, himself a critic of the Gibson raid and one of Tennessee’s highest profile Perry supporters, introduced the Texas governor during a lunchtime fundraiser at the Memphis Botanical Gardens.
Before striding to the mic, Perry took a quick detour over to the guitar player in the corner of the room.

“Let me come over here and make sure … yes, that’s what I thought that was. God bless you, that is a Gibson guitar!” Perry announced to the audience, which included local business leaders and GOP state lawmakers Rep. Mark White and Sen. Brian Kelsey.

“And you tell the government, ‘Keep your hands off of my Gibson!’,” Perry exhorted the musician.

That chop at the federal government over the Gibson raids in Nashville and Memphis was the latest in a chorus of opposition that’s grown in intensity ever since federal agents investigating whether the company illegally imported wood temporarily shut down the facilities. The government seized wood, electronic files and guitars.
A “We Stand With Gibson” rally, sponsored by several dozen Tea Party and Republican groups, is scheduled in Nashville at the Scoreboard Restaurant on Oct. 8 from 2-4 p.m. Speakers slated to appear include Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and talk radio hosts Steve Gill, Phil Valentine and Mark Skoda.
Musicians are also increasingly speaking out about the issue.
In a video posted to Gibson’s “This Will Not Stand” website, Sully Erna – a member of the heavy metal band Godsmack – said “I believe in their innocence, and I stand by them 100 percent as they fight to protect their rights.”
Country legend Charlie Daniels riffed and railed on the Gibson raids for the Facebook faithful.
“When I went to Iraq the first time, I saw a great need for recreational musical instruments as a lot of the troops played, to one degree or another, but just didn’t have instruments to help while away the lonely off duty hours,” Daniels wrote. “When I got back stateside I started something we called Operation Heartstrings in an effort to provide instruments and strings to our men and women serving so far away from home. The first call I made was to Henry Juszkiewicz, the owner of the Gibson Guitar Company who, without hesitation, donated one hundred Gibson guitars and a gross or so of strings to the project.”
Wondered Daniels, “Is this what America has come to, that the resources of the United States government can be used to settle political scores by a petulant president and a totally out of control Justice Department?”

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…..Thank you BobF, for sending this to me.
BobF
SMSgt, USAF
1973 – 1999

Charlie Daniels did a good piece on how Gibson is being persecuted by the current administration for what he suspects is their support of Republicans. He also mentions how Gibson gave guitars and strings to Operation Heartstrings to provide instruments to our troops overseas.

Charlie Daniles Note at his Facebook page
And if you are on oFacebook HERE IS Charlie Daniels facebook page
When I went to Iraq the first time I saw a great need for recreational musical instruments as a lot of the troops played, to one degree or another, but just didn’t have instruments to help while away the lonely off duty hours.
When I got back stateside I started something we called Operation Heartstrings in an effort to provide instruments, and strings to our men and women serving so far away from home.
The first call I made was to Henry Juszkiewicz, the owner of the Gibson Guitar Company who, without hesitation, donated one hundred Gibson guitars and a gross or so of strings to the project.
Henry is good American and businessman who makes a quality product and exports it to the world, providing a lot of American jobs in the process.
On August 24, agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security executed a raid on the corporate headquarters and two of the factories of the Gibson Guitar Company in Nashville, TN.
They confiscated 24 pallets of Indian rosewood, some finished guitars and some of the company’s computer files, claiming that Gibson had illegally imported the wood used to make fretboards and bridges on their guitars.
A little known – and recently amended – piece of legislation called the Lacey Act contends that American companies have to operate according to the laws of the country exporting the wood.
The feds contend that if the fretboards had been finished in India and imported that way there would be no problem, but that when imported in the raw form and finished by American workers it is illegal.
And here’s the sickening thing, the complaint did not originate with the Indian government. They are perfectly happy to export the unfinished fretboards.
The deputy director general of foreign trade for India even stated in a letter in July of this year that rosewood ebony from India was freely exportable but the feds seem to want to use their own interpretation of the law to harass Gibson.
And I do mean harass.
Why not the other guitar companies who import and use the same wood, why single out Gibson?
Could it be that Henry Juszkiewicz has been known to support Republican candidates while at least one other major guitar manufacturer supports Democrats?
Is this what America has come to, that the resources of the United States government can be used to settle political scores by a petulant president and a totally out of control Justice Department?
Is there not anything more pressing and more dangerous to America than persecuting an old and honorable American company that provides much-needed jobs in a job-hungry economy?
No matter what he says, Obama has a careless disregard for American jobs, especially if they’re not unionized.
If the Homeland Security Department needs something to do they could provide some much needed help on the Arizona border.
This is disgusting.
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, and for our country.
God Bless America
Charlie Daniels

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Wild Thing’s comment…….
Love stories like this. And I love what Perry said and Charlie Daniels note.