Most of you guys are talking about your hobby. For me, my family and six
employees, it's the only living we know. Help's wonderfully to concentrate
the mind!
Doug's point about the size and influence of the MVPA relative to the EAA,
NRA etc is a good one - but surely the forum to raise this issue is within
the MVPA itself. They have already made it perfectly clear that they don't
read this list to determine policy.
The NRA, a well financed, well organised interest group couldn't stop the US
anti gun laws. If government (in any country) wants to enact legislation
that the majority of the people don't feel strongly about, then it's almost
impossible to stop them by head on confrontation. Especially when your
interest group is a microdot on the political radar of the legislators. The
MVPA has been working on the Form 6 issue for more than a year so don't hold
your breath waiting for a result.
My bet is that the general public, most of the time, see military stuff as
'bad' and not politically correct and the people who play with it as
(dangerous?) eccentrics. There are high ranking and influential people
within the industrial/political/military complex who for whatever reasons
are seeking to play up the terrorist/criminal threat attached to ex military
vehicles regardless of the fact that there are no documented incidents of
such occurrencies. They are using this to limit the import of such
equipment by de facto restrictions on Form 6 approval and now trying to
widen the scope of their activity by cloaking it in some 'catch-all'
legislation like 4205. This is not a conspiracy theory it's just a
recognition of certain people's political attitudes related to practical
benefits. You could find similar interest groups in the Aids debate
regardless of the fact that infinitely fewer people die from Aids in the US
every year than from smoking, alcohol abuse or road traffic accidents.
Fortunately, there are a few seriously big hitters within our hobby. The
MVPA may talk about 'hiring' them but since they each probably spend more
individually on their military vehicle hobby in a year than the entire club
subscription budget, this 'hiring' is more in spirit than reality. These
people may be using contacts and influence to help our cause. However, you
can be sure that this is a sideline to the main event for all of them so
whatever political and personal favours are being called in are being booked
against past activities outside the hobby and more connected with the
mainstream of business and political life. That's the reason none of them
will stand up to be counted. It's also the reason why speculating publicly
on who they are or trying to 'out' them may result in them dropping the
whole thing as a hot potatoe. So we may have to rely on the assurances of
others that important things are going on behind the scenes that we do not
have a divine right to know about. That doesn't mean that we have to give
up personal lobbying of political representatives and legislators in a
reasoned manner.
Without a doubt, websites like this one are monitored by the 'powers that
be'. Nigel Hay runs a hit analyser programme on Milweb and a significant
number of hits are regularly provided by US Government agencies. Talk of
'parking my Sherman on the White House lawn' or 'rigging the .50 cals to
the halftrack and waiting for them to come' plays straight into the hands of
the spin doctors.
I think this List is a fantastic forum for information and I am amazed at
the ability of certain individuals to spend hours poking round in the
archives to give us chapter and verse on legislation. Without looking here,
I wouldn't have known about a fraction of it. Please keep up the good work.
Before you ask why 'foreigners' like Doug or myself involve ourselves in
America's internal business remember that these people meet their
counterparts at seminars and conferences all over the world. (How else do
they get those nice foreign holidays?). What's perceived policy in one
country rapidly spreads to all the others.
Now flame on.
Cheers. Mike S. UK.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 02 2000 - 09:32:36 PDT