The day before sending my last column (“We are (not) all in this together,” Clarion News, March 20) to the editor of this newspaper, I emailed it to a friend whose opinion on these matters I trust and, without my knowledge, he forwarded it to something just less than half the free world. Within 24 hours, I began to receive emails from people I'd never heard of before, a few with rather impressive credentials.

Turns out there was one paragraph in that column that hit a bigger bulls eye than I could possibly have imagined: “For the longest time the communicators in the environmental movement have been trying to convince hunters, trappers and anglers that ‘We're all in this together.’ But if anyone needs an example of what will happen if the blood sport community succumbs to this siren song, all they need to do is watch what the (National Wildlife Federation) is about to do to the (Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs).”

As the first few emails arrived, I thought perhaps I’d inadvertently connected to the chat room of an aluminum skullcap convention. However, after spending many days researching and verifying information sent to me by one of those impressively credentialed individuals, I knew these people weren’t paranoid -- scared perhaps and mad but definitely not paranoid.

Step by heavily documented step, I wound my way through a maze of incestuously connected, not-for-profit organizations (and their enabling foundation funding sources) until an alarming picture emerged from the clutter. The National Wildlife Federation, it became ominously clear, was but one player in a cabal of well-funded organizations that are doggedly executing an off-the-radar plan to induce congestive heart failure on America by constricting its blood flow of energy.

And yet, even after I fully understood the juxtaposition of all the participants in this plan, it still took something of an epiphany, something personal, for me to fully comprehend what was taking place. The wake-up call came when I read how the cabal was using hook ‘n bullet writers to distract an unsuspecting nation with a scripted call for the wild while the plan-masters systematically pinched off the sources of its life giving power.

Although I didn't understand what was taking place when it happened, I was a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) several years back when a dust-up between the NRA and the Sierra Club splintered this august organization. Within a few months, a sizable group of the disenchanted completed the break and went off on their own. And the OWAA, without the leveling ballast of these departed members, quickly listed ominously to port. Unbeknownst to me, I was an unwitting participant in a tug-of-war for the heart and soul of my profession. In retrospect, it’s obvious who won.

Without preparing a novelette-length, heavily footnoted article which would have to read more like a researcher’s white paper than an outdoor column, it's impossible to share the depth and scope of what I've learned since I hit the send button on that email. However, for those of you who are truly interested and, like me, don't believe everything you read in a newspaper, there's a book available that tells the whole, frightening story much better than I could and from a perspective you might never have imagined. It’s called, “Energy keepers - Energy killers: The New Civil Rights Battle,” and it was written by Roy Innis, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality.

The heavily documented conclusion a reader must draw from Mr. Innis’ book ( America ’s impending – but completely avoidable - social and economic Armageddon) should be a call to arms for this nation’s sportsmen. The cabal, which we now know the National Wildlife Federation is a proactive member of, is attempting, with the fiery rhetoric of global warming, to sear their brand of command-and-control utopia on a nation founded and grown strong on a free market economy.

In their hubris, the members of the cabal believe their end – a forced disconnect from the sources of carbon-based fuel - justifies whatever means they must employ. Are they a gathering of the self-righteous, financially immunized by foundation largess from the consequence of their actions or are they indeed anarchists, willing – nay, apparently anxious - to destroy the free-market system that empowers them? The distinction is moot, the end result the same.

In a short while, we – the hunters, anglers and trappers of Pennsylvania – will have the opportunity to rid ourselves of the National Wildlife Federation, the traitor in our midst whose assigned mission was to usurp our historical credibility as the keepers and defenders of the wild in order to distract the nation while other members of the cabal complete their utopian plan.

We must not fail.

John Street is an inquisitive contrarian who writes, frequently with humor, about current events in fish and wildlife research as well as the ethical and societal issues that affect the outdoor life. He can be contacted at johnstreet@windstream.net