Western Mining Alliance :?:

[DJR]

I recently got approach by this org. they want me to join and of course they want money. I have never heard of them. Anyone know anything about this crowd.
Any info is appreciated

[Reno badboy]

Good outfit. Working to clean up this mess. One of the guys is Mojave Joe on here.

[russau]

DJR you need to get out more! yep, they are good guys trying to get something done! theres several people here that are working with WMA to assist whereever they can. Hoser was with that group back in the 80s and was very active in it.

[CalGoldDredger]

Hoser was with that group back in the 80s and was very active in it.

That is a false statement. Western Mining Council (Hoser) and Western Mining Alliance (Brand New) are not one and the same, not even close for comparison. I take it that they just tried to slip in using a recongnized name or something.

WMC was #1 (THE BEST of the best) worked with everybody to keep us mining over the years and when they closed up shop it all has gone downhill since no thanks to the fantastic fun fun's (keeping it polite and clean).

If you are not comfortable with them asking for money then send your money my way, it'll be better spent, I really need some new mining equipment.
OK, seriously, Joe (Mojave Joe) and Rick (Bluebeard) are good guys!! Best of Luck on the objective.

[russau]

thanks for correcting me John. i obviously over looked this fact.i didnt even think to check and Hoser had previously commented on this awhile back and it went right over my bald head! its tough getting old!

[CalGoldDredger]

What I was trying to point out was that WMC was dang good. "bald head" but you make up for it with the facial hair. Don't use the old excuse. LOL

Don't know much about the Alliance, only know the guys behind it, would expect to hear great things from them but stopped expecting anything here in Cal.

[russau]

i was asked to join (indirectly?)and i did. ive been extreamly inefective as a memeber because of my computor not opening DOCS. and i have to go through a little proccedure to open DOCs. now, but thanks to Nebraskdad (Rex M.) i atleast have a way todo it now! and thanks again John for correcting me! you probly saved me a azz chewing from Hoser when he read this!

[Hoser John]

say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat- never chew your arse bud tooooooooooo hairy I've had lots of interested folks lately trying to find out whatzup and have the charters of both the Western Mining Council and Miners Alliance which are LEGAL and were non profit also,and this compilation name "borrowers"are not-John

[Bluebeard]

DJR- did you and I talk? I am one of the organizers of WMA.

Let me clear the air: We didn't choose the name to be confused with Western Mining Council; we were looking for a name that best described the region we were planning on representing along with finding a www.name that was available. I was hoping for a more nationally sounding name, but I was outvoted and WMA was chosen. Ultimately we plan on representing all the small miner operators in the US, but that goal is a ways out- first we need to try to organize the miners in California. Personally, I wish WMC was around so I wouldn't have to go through the effort to create something that should be up and running. But if they were up and running, we may not have been in this situation.... but I digress.

The bottom line is during this last environmentalist attack on the miners, our response (as a recognized small industry) was pathetic. Now I don't mean to degrade all the individuals who poured blood, sweat and tears into this battle as I know a lot of people did a lot of stuff on an individual basis (myself included). The problem is there was NO PUSHBACK from any organization which was recognized as representing the whole industry. The New 49'ers is a private business and they did what they could; PLP has been fighting lawsuits, but there was nowhere to go for anyone who had questions about the small miner's stance on things. No media outlet with archives of videos showing how fish are feeding off the end of the dredges, or videos of the tons of garbage the miners pull out of the river; there was very limited pro-miner PR (Rachel Dunn was the only one) when we needed articles placed in every newspaper and magazine in the state on a weekly basis (like our opponents did on a non-stop basis). The enviros probably thought the miners were a push-over.

I don't believe it is too late to begin to organize a push back. It's true, its an uphill battle, but what do we have to lose to try? WMA was created by 4 mining claim owners who were brought together by Mojave Joe about 6 months ago - he chose us because we were pretty good writers. I am a much better writer when I have several sets of eyes viewing my document to offer editing tips. We all worked that way, and I thought we put out some pretty good stuff. Eric M put together an awesome powerpoint which literally blew Charlie Alpers Humbug Creek study out of the water. And on his dime, he flew out here to California from Florida for 4 hours to give his presentation in front of Mark Stopher at the last public DFG meeting in Sacramento. During Eric's presentation, you could have heard a pin drop in the room- Mark Stopher was busily scribbling on his notepad. Right after the meeting was over, Eric went back to the airport to fly back to Florida. I was impressed with his dedication to get all the dredgers back into the water (to fly 6000 miles in a day to give a 30 minute presentation). Literally the day after that meeting the budget rider proposing the 5 year moratorium was introduced. I'm thinking his presentation had something to do with it. The enviros figured out their goose was cooked and they implemented plan B. Others have suggested that the rider was already in the pipe, but it was curious that it showed up the next day.

DJR- I am the only one of us who has been talking to anyone outside of the inner circle of WMA. So far I have NEVER asked anyone for money, yet. If you didn't talk to me, you may have been scammed by someone else. Eventually we will be asking for money, but we didn't want to do so until we got our infrastructure up for our website and had an outline of a plan. It is not a good idea to ask people for money if you don't have a plan. Our intent is to create a media portal which will have information available to anyone who has a question about the science of small mining. We are planning a video archive, an audio archive of the movers and shakers in the small mining industry (OUR scientists, manufacturers, politicians who support us, etc) and it will all be available for anyone to download.

One of our main focuses was to create a community of miners. When the mining districts were first formed, the community idea was easy- everyone lived in the district and were neighbors. Now most claim holders live miles from their claims and thus have no idea what is "happening in the neighborhood". WMA wants to contact every claim holder in the state and create a watershed specific database of all the contact info for all the claim holders in the watershed. Each watershed will have a "Watershed Manager" who is the "go to" guy for that watershed.

A couple of years ago, Maguyver of the Yuba (Jan S) was visited by the USFS and Sierra County Sheriff and was forcibly kept away from his cabin on his claim while the authorities tore it down. Jan was alone as he watched this happen. I was thinking, it would have been pretty cool if Jan could have called Bill X the Watershed Manager for Middle Fork of the Yuba and told him what was happening and then he could have sent out an email to all of Jan's neighbors in the region to see if anyone would mind "moseying by" to offer support to Jan. This is one of the benefits of a community- everyone works together for their mutual benefit. If dredges are being stolen in an area, word goes out and everyone in the watershed is on the look out. The benefits are limitless, besides knowing all your neighbors. Soon we will be looking for people to act as watershed managers to oversee their watersheds.

Another focus is to do some lobbying in Sacramento. If we showed up at our representative's office and told them we represented 50,000 small miners in the state, it may have a bit more clout than three of us showing up a the office.

Nobody wants to join anything unless they are getting some sort of direct benefit. Sure "throw some money in for the cause" goes a little ways, but everyone wants to see some sort of return on their money. I'd like to create a web portal where the small miner could directly benefit from the product we produce- gold. In case someone hasn't noticed, there is a huge world-wide demand for gold because there is a world-wide competitive devaluation of all fiat currencies (you know, the stuff in your pockets where the banks create it out of nothing and loan it out for interest?). Now why should the small miner be selling his gold to the local jeweler for a discount? What if WMA could create a situation where you got paid a premium for your product? I've got some ideas here.

So you are a miner and you need some seed money? Maybe WMA could be instrumental in connecting you with someone who would be willing to loan you money, as long as you paid the interest of the loan in gold? Currently any deposit in any banking organization is paying less than a single percent interest (while the bankers are getting $trillion bailouts- but don't get me started). Who do you think would be interested in financing a loan that paid interest in gold and that interest also had a 10 year history of gaining an average of 25% per year? I don't consider myself the brightest guy in the room, but sign me up. I've been watching the gold market for over 20 years and I wouldn't be surprised to see the price in excess of $5000 in several years. Who wouldn't want to have the interest of a loan paid in gold? Now, I may need help on this idea as I am not a banker and I don't know banking regulations, so if any of you can guide me, by all means let's talk.

Guys (and gals), we are extracting gold out of the ground. And you know what? GOLD IS MONEY (the only money that is not someone else's liability). You do know the golden rule don't you? (he who has the gold, makes the rules). Instead of a run down industry, the small mining industry should be booming. Suppose we could get some of those rich investor sorts of people interested in our plight? Maybe get one of those guys to "see the elephant". We all know what gold fever does, don't we? Maybe a portion of the website should be dedicated to gold as an investment, and guess what? We are the people who get the gold out of the ground- talk about a "ground floor opportunity" for an investor who is sitting on $millions collecting a small fraction of a percent interest in a CD in a bank. My guess is it would be pretty easy to get some investment gurus interested. Get a few of those sort of guys interested in our plight and the donation or pinch we will be asking you for will be a drop in the bucket of what some of the savvy wold-wide investors could bring to the table .

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Gang, its time to think outside the box, what we have been doing isn't working. Individuals writing letters doesn't work. Responding via email to comment sections of small mining bashing articles doesn't work- we are the only ones who read them. Miners are the hardest workforce in this country, and its time to get to work. Time to think WAY outside the box and get our industry up and booming like it should be.

We have lots of other ideas, but I don't want to bore you with a 20 page novel. If you've got some ideas, I want to hear them now.

Hopefully you're with me. If you can offer donations, support, a skill, some time to help out, anything, let us know. Currently we are not set up to accept donations, so I won't be asking until I can do something with them.

As a side note- this commentary is my own personal rant and may not exactly represent WMA's viewpoint.

Rick

[Hoser John]

WMC,WESTERN MINING COUNCIL is a COPYWRITTEN NAME AND SO IS MINERS ALLIANCE I'll check into a cease and desist order to end the bastardazation of our LEGAL AND COPYWRITTEN NAMES TO RIDE OUR HONEST REPUTATIONS-Seems to me,and many others you were on that give me at least a buck tangent on half a dozen forums last year or so --my my how memory fades----John