Kodiak Hosts Ted Stevens and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Event taken over by outsiders and fishery propaganda

By Stephen Taufen - Groundswell Fisheries Movement

UFA chose wrong man for honor

Modified from version published in the Kodiak Daily Mirror, Friday, Apr 24th, 2009

On Thursday evening, the Juneau-based United Fishermen of Alaska took over Kodiak's ComFish commemorative dinner "Celebrating the Seafood Industry." UFA gave ex-senator Ted Stevens a lifetime achievement award anchored in the theme "Look How Far We've Come" since statehood. The award was presented at a "dinner to recognize the evolution of the commercial seafood industry in Alaska over the last 50 years."

Besides Stevens, twenty others were celebrated as charter members of UFA 's Seafood Hall of Fame, as UFA gave Ted lifetime membership, as well. UFA was allegedly honoring "lifetime accomplishments in promoting and protecting Alaska's seafood industry and fishery resources."

That's right; we're right back to foreign and outside domination of Alaska's fisheries, unreasonably low ex-vessel fish prices, and crashing crab crew settlement incomes, as well as small businesses in fishery dependent communities up and down the coast now closing doors. However, UFA sent its political storm troopers to take over ComFish's major public event, and celebrated the man who largely ushered in the massive privatization of the nation's public commons that caused those harms.

He's the same corrupt U.S. Senator who allowed our North Pacific Fishery Management Council to represent the conflicted interests of a few kleptocrats, instead of serving the many - let alone obtaining the true value of our seafood for Alaskans. The man who brought a "resource curse" upon Alaska fisheries instead of protecting the value of that Commonwealth for U.S. citizens and taxpayers - the very ones that Stevens continues to bleed today: for his fat government pension.

It adds insult to injury that this occurs barely a week past April 15 - tax day.

Kodiak's most stalwart seafarers still working in boots and raingear found UFA's nauseating stunt less welcome than a net full of live man-eating sharks on deck. Or as one disenfranchised crab crewmember put it, "Ted is like jellyfish in my eye." Another asked, "Why would any person of sound mind even want to receive an award from UFA , a conflicted group mostly controlled by processors and their shills?"

The trade show was moved to a building once occupied by a healthy business whose timely demise overlapped the recent implementation of Ted's immoral crab and rockfish privatization and consolidation plans. And other Kodiak businesses remain at risk from rationalization harms.

During early planning stages for ComFish, controversial seminar topics - such as the regional economic harms caused by Crab Rationalization - were seen by Kodiak's Chamber of Commerce as too sensitive for public discussions. Except that as the event approached, last minute maneuverings by fishery lobbyists like Linda Kozak threw such sensitivities into a gurry grinder and schemed behind the scenes with UFA to honor their choices - many from the flock of cronies behind those harms. A few decent choices for lifetime achievement awards provided the truth side of the propaganda that always covers for the lies.

So with the Chamber's blessing, once-convicted former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, the Hulk of foreign-controlled privatization was raised phoenix-style - like Dr. Joseph Goebbels used unjustifiable propaganda to stir up German working class sympathies in the 1930's - by those who directly profiteered under his politically corrupt reign. Those like the Alaska Whitefish Trawlers (formerly Alaska Draggers), Alaska Groundfish Data Bank, and vessel and processor recipients of multi-million dollar 'gifted' federal fish quotas that left out local small businesses and crewmembers.

Meanwhile, the corporate welfare group's quislings stirred the blue shirts into protective action with deceitful accusations that local fishermen might protest the event; and in the process, needlessly scared Alaska's governing family, probably so that Sarah Palin would avoid firsthand contact with those who knew the truths about the economic harms. God forbid the governor would, on her first visit to Kodiak in years, come into contact with harmed constituents and consider standing up for their rights by further challenging federal giveaways of adjacent waters Commonwealth.

Hence the propaganda-bound lobbyists busied themselves last Thursday evening, remaking Ted into Neptune Almighty in shameless blasphemy - despite warnings that more federal indictments implicating him may soon be on the way. Celebrating what's now become CON-Fish.

Seafood Hall of Fame & Shame:

The propagandists produced an eight page pamphlet for the dinner, and it listed the 20 charter members UFA chose for their Hall of Fame - a list that was oddly skewed toward UFA founders and Petersburg processors associated with Icicle Seafoods. That's right, the same Icicle that sold out recently to outside investors. The same Icicle that violated federal fisheries laws at Adak Island nearly a decade ago, taking $38 million in crab against the rules, and got caught by NOAA law enforcement.

In 2004, the largest fine in NOAA history was levied against them: $3.44 million. Just a month ago, that case went across the desk of NOAA's new director, Jane Lubchenco and was upheld. Expect Icicle to appeal to U.S. District Court next - dragging that case on for years more.

At or about 1600 hrs. PST, Kozak called Bob Alverson of the Fishing Vessel Owners Association in Seattle to tell him they were going to use his name that night, hoping he didn't mind getting a UFA award. FVOA is one of the groups belonging to UFA (for what legitimate reason we don't know!). It was, of course, too late for him to fly up and receive the award in Kodiak. ("Wait, wait don't tell me!" - the pamphlets were printed long before last Thursday, so someone could have picked up a phone earlier, right!?)

Who knows how many of Kozak's clients were also behind ensuring Alverson (worthy of the Hall of Fame) did not get the last appointment to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, but it is clear that at least one of the other recipients lobbied against Bob's appointment. Instead, Kozak phoned a local fisherman - maybe one of her clients - and had him accept the award, to his shoulder shrugging dismay: as Goebbels sent her kisses from the grave.

UFA celebrated the Brindle Family for 75 years as one of the largest community-based processors. Gosh, we thought they were headquartered in Seattle, that grandpa Brindle was one of the fish trap giants, and Wards Cove Packing sold out its operations in the middle of the Bristol Bay price-fixing case to play "oh poor us" before the jury. But the Brindles had been big players in broadcasting among processors (after returning from a Tokyo meeting) "the Okaya Plan" - a price-setting scheme favoring Japanese parent companies and oligopsonists (a buyers-as-owners cartel) for sockeye salmon. And while they were founders or board members of the National Bank of Alaska , wasn't it sold out to Wells Fargo, a non-Alaskan corporation? As predicted in 1979, excessive foreign ownership would serve to falsify the profits of seafood processors to the extent that domestic banks would conclude they should not invest. That's one of the key harms of allowing abusive transfer pricing.

Likewise, Wards Cove was a large private shareholder in Alaska , but paid little taxes comparatively. A family with a net worth allegedly well over a billion dollars, one wonders how much they scalped off the fish tickets over the decades while smiling at blindsided plantation loving fishermen. No wonder they could afford a few loans to help out fishermen willing to deliver more fish to under-price: let's not even mention lender liability laws!

Worse yet, the Brindles were behind special language inserted in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 by then U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski, making Wards Cove Packing the only company granted an exemption from the national law. That was so thousands of Filipino workers could not continue legal actions about what one federal judge call 'a plantation mentality' at its canneries - preventing non-whites from having more than menial jobs. To give this award to them in Kodiak, home to many Filipino processing workers and their families, qualifies the Brindles for a special place in the Hall of Shame!

Similarly, UFA listed Chuck Bundrant of Trident Seafoods - the one major U.S. processor who could have joined forces with Groundswell and turned federal witness in 1995 to stop the foreign controlled corporate dominance in U.S. salmon fisheries of the North Pacific, but never had the courage to do so. Trident recently lobbied against Alverson to place John Hendershedt on the NPFMC, and spent at least $20,000 on revolving door lobbyists at Washington2Advocates in the process. Hendershedt and Trident's Dave Benson both recently changed their financial disclosures at the NPFMC (April 1 and 2, 2009 - during the recent Council meeting). Paperwork can't just cover a wall of conflicted interests in the Hall of Shame. But Goebbels would be proud enough to supply the glue.

Among many Kodiak fishermen, the least favorite name on the list was Al Burch. Back in 1977 when the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act was being implemented, his brother Oral and Al worked with the Korean Marine Industry Development Corporation to gather 30 shrimp boats for catching pollock and delivering it to a monstrous Korean factory ship waiting offshore in the 200-mile EEZ. They fought the efforts of the New England Fish Company to receive a significant portion of the allowable catch tonnage, in order to establish a shoreside fish processing facility here in Kodiak's Gibson Cove.

The Burch's preferred their private profits to the development of an Americanized fishery that would have instituted new markets and raised competition. As director of the Alaska Draggers, Al continues to serve the purposes of fleet consolidation and privatization for self-enrichment for a few, believing in gifted quotas - embezzled from our national oceanic Commonwealth without compensation to U.S. citizen-taxpayers. Hall of Shame.

Before moving on to a worthy inclusion (Bob Bartlett), let's ponder who was left off the list. No mention of James P. 'Bud' Walsh who was Staff Counsel for the Subcommittee on Oceanography of the United States Senate's Committee on Commerce. "From 1972 until 1977, he handled between 10-15 new laws for the Committee each year in the following areas: marine fisheries, coastal zone management, ocean policy and science, the U.S. Coast Guard, the merchant marine, oil pollution prevention and liability, vessel safety. and international law of the sea. Bud was also principally responsible for drafting the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act which extended U.S. fisheries jurisdiction to 200 miles. In 1977, he was named the Committee's General Counsel."

"In 1978, Bud joined the Administration of President Jimmy Carter as the Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a position requiring Senate confirmation. NOAA at the time had 15,000 employees and a budget of $1 billions and Bud was responsible for day-to-day management of the oceans programs at the agency." Missing from UFA 's Hall of Fame.

But Goebbels would be proud of UFA 's editing that says in the pamphlet that Stevens "authored the original Magnuson-Stevens Act". It's hair-splitting. It leaves out the question of who authored the original Fisheries Conservation and Management Act implemented in March of 1977, or any predecessor language drafted within the National Marine Fisheries Service in the preceding years. As Bob King, a host of Thursday's event said, many have laid claim, often over a few beers. The real question is why Ted Stevens failed to protect Alaska from foreign-controlled corporations who now take billions offshore annually in seafood revenues and profits and pay little to no federal taxes in the United States .

Former Territorial governor Ernest Gruenig was included on the list. If you want a good read, Google up his speech about Alaska , "Let Us Now End American Colonialism." Hall of Fame!

Bob Bartlett - "Architect of Alaska Statehood"

Pre-statehood the territory was a colonial economy that for salmon was "a legacy of Seattle and San Francisco cannery operators' unmerciful exploitation of Alaska 's fisheries." And while UFA's charter members include Bob Bartlett for "1964 Federal Legislation banning foreign fishing fleets in territorial waters," they left out the most important reason to celebrate Bartlett - his keynote address at Alaska's Constitutional Convention, a speech about building protections into Alaska's constitution to keep Alaska's "resources from falling under the control of outside interests."

In light of the privatization schemes of gifted federal quotas of fish off Alaska's shores, Bartlett would doubtlessly have refused to be on the same list as Ted Stevens, a corrupt senator who penned those Rationalization schemes that have led to overwhelming levels of foreign and outside ownership of Alaskan processing plants.

According to public sources, "Senator Edward Lewis "Bob" Bartlett served as Alaska 's Territorial Delegate to Congress from 1945-59. Following Alaska 's induction into the Union on January 3, 1959, Bartlett served as U. S. Senator until his death in 1968. The Library of Congress estimates that he had more bills passed into law than any other Member in the history of Congress."

An earlier article in AlaskaReport by Ray Metcalfe outlined Bob's message in the late-1950's. Bartlett 's speech read "A failure to write into fundamental law basic barriers to minimize fraud, corruption, non-development, and exploitation may well be viewed fifty years from now as this Convention's greatest omission."

Bartlett warned "Two very real dangers are present. The first and most obvious danger is that of exploitation under the thin disguise of development. The taking of Alaska's mineral resources without leaving some reasonable return for the support of Alaska governmental services and the use of all the people of Alaska will mean a betrayal in the administration of the people's wealth.

Bartlett further warned "that outside interests, determined to stifle any development in Alaska which might compete with their activities elsewhere, will attempt to acquire great areas of Alaska's public lands in order NOT to develop them until such time as, in their omnipotence and the pursuance of their own interests, they see fit. If large areas of Alaska's patrimony are turned over to such corporations the people of Alaska may be even more the losers than if the lands had been exploited."

In response, Alaska's delegates adopted the most comprehensive resource protection Resources Article in the nation. Article VIII, Section 1 - requires resources to be made available for the maximum use "consistent with the public interest." Section 2 - requires development and conservation (conservation meaning wise use) "for the maximum benefit of its people."

Stevens Forgot Key Lessons of Fish History:

A recent piece by Laine Welch quoted Ted's speech on Thursday night (April 23). Stevens said, "Looking back over 50 years - when delegates from around the state sat down to draft Alaska's Constitution, and at the time our salmon runs were at disaster levels and our offshore fisheries were being pillaged by foreign fleets and many of our other fisheries had yet to be developed, it was with wisdom and foresight that drafters of Alaska's Constitution wrote our commitment to sustainability right in our constitution."

Stevens continued, "It was with frustration and a real independent spirit that Alaskans voted to ban the fish traps that were allowing outside companies to control our resources. Our constitution mandated this - and we live by this now - that fish would be utilized, developed and maintained on a sustained-yield principle, and that has guided fisheries management from the beginning of Alaska statehood."

Knowing this before authoring Rationalization regimes into statute through must-pass bills as personal riders, Ted Stevens, the chief architect of many Alaska resource giveaways, hardly served the public's interest. Bartlett , on the other hand, we place in the Hall of Fame.

Stevens enjoys his revisionist rhetoric as much as gauleiter Goebbels loved his campaign among the upper classes during 1926 and the suppression of pacifists in Berlin as point man for Adolf Hitler. UFA and Kodiak's quisling lobbyists and related consultant squad obviously enjoy circling around Stevens - like storm troopers for the corporate socialist agenda. But what of people who actually fish? While weaving more propaganda, Ted at least tried to acknowledge them when talking about the "Magnuson-Stevens Act."

As Welch's article quoted, "There is no question that Alaska commercial fishermen drove that bill," Stevens said. "We led the world in extending jurisdiction 200 miles off the shores, and there is not a country in the world today that doesn't claim the 200 mile limit. Alaska brought that about, and we did it not for the fishermen, but to sustain the reproductive capability of the fish species."

Hold it one shark-biting moment! The USA hardly led the world in extending jurisdiction over continental shelf resources and establishing 200-mile zones. I was at NEFCO in 1976, when Ed Furia was helping the company lobby in the original Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and NEFCO was already engaged in disputes over confiscated vessels fishing in Latin America.

Let's just name a few historical measures to guide Ted's credit-taking demeanor back to reality. The 1947 Chilean decree; the 1950 Britain actions regarding fisheries off the Falkland Islands; the 1956 Decree of Ciudad Trujillo; a 1958 Continental Shelf Declaration; not to mention Arab and Turk actions in the 1950's on oil exploration. Or the 1952 Santiago Declaration by Chile , Costa Rica , Ecuador and Peru - the one concerning NEFCO fishing boats in the mid-1970's. And how about remembering February 24, 1975 when Russia extended its fishery zone to 200nm around the disputed Kurile Islands , or the October 15, 1975 British measure again adapting its 1964-1975 Fishery Limit Act? We think Stevens fancies himself a George Washington crossing the Potomac in boats rowed by fishermen so that his armies can claim victory - only in this case, hardly for Alaska or the United States . Stevens has at least one foot firmly planted in the Hall of Shame.

Before leaving this topic, something else should have been worthy of great mention when attempting to celebrate Stevens for his rationalization and consolidation schemes favoring large processors and vessels. Cod crashes had occurred off the East Coast several times, and in the 1980's it was the small boats out of Newfoundland, fishing near shore, who sounded the alarm early after cod catches dropped 60% and size grading into smaller sizes became a deep problem. Stevens had such a heavy hand over Alaska's regional fisheries management council process that rationalization has recently led to pushing out about 700 License Limitation Permits in the Pacific cod fisheries. About 500 of the losers are in one species or another 'active fishermen'.

It seems to Groundswell that if Stevens had been in charge of lighthouses, he'd have torn down any one that could have warned local mariners of the impending dangers of a rocky coast. Whoops, we forgot, he did have a lighthouse bill already, favoring another group of cronies.

UFA Confirms Fear Mongering:

FEAR is false events appearing real - Goebbels' modus operandi, Kozak et al and UFA 's modus vivendi. After most of the dinner guests had scattered, UFA's executive director Mark Vinsel came over to thank me, saying that it showed real class for the Kodiak fishermen present to act like gentlemen that night. I quickly informed him that we were aware that several people had tried to stir up law enforcement and the Coast Guard MPs into thinking that Kodiak crewmembers would somehow cause trouble. Vinsel's voice stumbled as he denied having done so. But several others surely did.

I informed Vinsel that the mere fact he felt that it was necessary to thank us was evidence that such rumors and fears had indeed been spread around, and we were deeply insulted by the implications that Kodiakans would act as anything but ladies and gentlemen, especially on the Coast Guard base - home of those who save so many fishermen's lives at risk of their own.

Truth is, UFA leaders and others came here to our home on Kodiak Island and disrupted us with their sociopathic takeover of our community's event, and their distorted Hall of Fame list. And even those on the list that we highly respect would have rolled over in their graves at the knowledge that, today, Alaska's fisheries are once again dominated by outside interests. They'd be especially insulted by the fact that Dutch Harbor and Kodiak are foreign branch economies of Japan for the purposes of siphoning off public commonwealth for a few select corporations.

There is a reason that when the Justice Department indicted Ted Stevens it was both the FBI and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division on stage with their spokesperson. For the purposes of evading federal corporate taxes, illicitly valued trade costs Alaska and the United States billions of dollars each year. Japan's seafood cartel and their hollow subsidiaries located ashore in Alaska leads the way on these illegal activities (abusive transfer pricing) in the bad conduct of trade.

Again, just imagine if a few of the worthy names on that list, such as former governors Ernest Gruenig and Jay Hammond, Gordon Jensen, and Bob Bartlett - and others - would have been here last Thursday evening to keep Ted and UFA in the reality zone. Maybe a likely misinformed Governor Sarah Palin and her husband would not have looked so uncomfortable and would have taken a chance to talk to the real fishermen who still risk their lives at sea, while the lobbyists and cronies continue to carve a corporate kleptocracy dominated by non-Alaskans out of the once free market capitalism in fisheries.

And we trust that Governor Palin - with Stevens increasingly out of the way - may now be free to give new consideration to the downfall inherent in resource "exploitation under the thin guise of development."

# # # # {rev.} Stephen Taufen

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