"What ranchers have always wanted…is private exploitation with costs paid by the public."
https://t.co/KMZsGj2oGk
— Billmon (@billmon1) January 4, 2016
As of this evening, Bundy and his merry men are refusing to go away quietly, per the Huffington Post:
The leader of a group of armed protesters occupying the headquarters of a U.S. wildlife refuge in rural southeastern Oregon on Thursday rejected a sheriff’s offer of passage out of the state to end the standoff.
During a meeting at a neutral site, Harney County Sheriff David Ward offered to escort Ammon Bundy and his group of occupiers out of Oregon, but Bundy declined…
Following the brief meeting, Bundy told reporters that he would consider Ward’s position, but the sheriff had not addressed their grievances. “We always consider what people say,” Bundy said.
The takeover that began on Saturday at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 30 miles (48 km) south of the small town of Burns, is the latest incident in the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, a decades-old conflict over federal control of land and resources in the U.S. West…
Federal law enforcement agents and local police have so far kept away from the occupied site, maintaining little visible presence outside the park in a bid to avoid the deadly violence that erupted during conflicts with militants in Idaho and Texas in the 1990s…
Harpers, despite its staunch no-freebies policy, has unlocked a report on the long venal history behind that “Sagebrush Rebellion” grift — “The Great Republican Land Heist”:
… In 1885, William A. J. Sparks, the commissioner of the General Land Office, reported to Congress that “unscrupulous speculation” had resulted in “the worst forms of land monopoly . . . throughout regions dominated by cattle-raising interests.” West of the hundredth meridian, cattle barons had enclosed the best forage along with scarce supplies of water in an arid landscape. They falsified titles using the signatures of cowhands and family members, employed fictitious identities to stake claims, and faked improvements on the land to appear to comply with the law. “Probably most private range land in the western states,” a historian of the industry concluded, “was originally obtained by various degrees of fraud.”…
This culture passed seamlessly to the Bureau of Land Management, which was created out of a merger between the Grazing Service and the General Land Office, in 1946. That same year, members of the American National Livestock Association met in Salt Lake City to discuss how best to undermine what few regulations had been placed on them. The Taylor Grazing Act had made grazing permits revocable. The livestock-permit holders wanted this provision overturned, for obvious reasons. But the stockmen’s ambition went further: they wanted the federal government to transfer control of all federal land, including the national parks, to the states…
One could write a postwar history of the West as a chronology of ranchers’ resistance to federal regulation, and the center of resistance has always been Nevada. In 1979, following the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which for the first time mandated environmental protection of territory controlled by the BLM, cattlemen pushed a law through the Nevada state legislature declaring that federal public lands were now the property of the state. They called it the Sagebrush Rebellion Act. The cattle barons styled themselves “sagebrush rebels,” and engaged in acts of defiance against the BLM, opening dirt tracks onto grazing allotments that had been closed, bulldozing new roads, overstocking their allotments, violating permit agreements, and refusing to pay grazing fees. As the rebellion spread, a conservative interest group called the American Legislative Exchange Council joined the fight. ALEC was founded in 1973 to craft “model legislation” for state governments; it brought together conservative state legislators and industry representatives in closed-door sessions. Copycat Sagebrush Rebellion Acts were passed in Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, and New Mexico…
The ALEC agenda has also found its way back to Congress. The vehicle has been the Republican leadership in the House Committee on Natural Resources, which controls the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation. The bills proposed in the most recent congressional session speak for themselves. The State-Run Federal Lands Act, sponsored by Representative Don Young, a former ALEC member from Alaska, authorizes federal-land managers to “enter into a cooperative agreement for state management of such federal land located in the state.” The Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act, sponsored by Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, directs the secretary of the interior to “offer for disposal by competitive sale certain federal lands in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.” With Republicans now in control of both the House and the Senate, these bills have a good chance of passing…
The wholesale transfer of public lands to state control may never be achieved. But the goal might be more subtle: to attack the value of public lands, to reduce their worth in the public eye, to diminish and defund the institutions that protect the land, and to neuter enforcement. Bernard DeVoto observed in the 1940s that no rancher in his right mind wanted to own the public lands himself. That would entail responsibility and stewardship. Worse, it would mean paying property taxes. What ranchers have always wanted, and what extractive industries in general want, is private exploitation with costs paid by the public…
Is the armed takeover of a government by militants actually patriotic?
Fox News just asking questions pic.twitter.com/EydDCZeCLS
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 4, 2016
Mother Jones has a short profile of one of the most enthusiastic legislative figureheads for the billionaires’ land grab:
As a young man, Ken Ivory served as a Mormon missionary in Guatemala. These days, he’s still looking for converts. Ivory, a Republican state representative from a Salt Lake City suburb, has spent the past three years traveling the American West to convince state and local officials that they can claim millions of acres of federal land to use as they wish…
… Ivory’s concept has caught on beyond the militia types who are demanding that the feds give up control of their holdings such as the eastern Oregon wildlife refuge currently held by armed occupiers. The Republican National Committee has endorsed the idea of turning over federal land to the states, and in March, the Senate passed a budget amendment sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would create a fund for selling or transferring the land. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has set forth a proposal that the federal government cannot own more than half the land in any state. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also endorsed state or private control of federal land…
The usual suspects are backing Ivory. He sits on the federalism committee of the American Legislative Exchange Council. His nonprofit, the American Lands Council (ALC), is largely funded by local and county governments eager to gain control of land in their communities. It has also taken funding from utility companies and Americans for Prosperity, the dark-money group founded by the Koch brothers…
So what does the sheriff think of #BundyMilitia? https://t.co/lGXweXjGYx pic.twitter.com/5NSuUy8HnI
— Amanda Peacher (@amandapeacher) January 4, 2016
The Washington Post has some useful backstory on “The mysterious fires that led to the Bundy clan’s Oregon standoff”:
… The trouble with the Hammonds and fire began in 2001. That year, the government showed, Steven Hammond went hunting, killing deer on land under control of the Bureau of Land Management. What to do to erase evidence of this game violation? Break out the matches.
“Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out ‘Strike Anywhere’ matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to ‘light up the whole country on fire,’” a Justice Department account of the trial read. “One witness testified that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the arson.”
The result: More than 100 acres of public land were destroyed. But, the government said, Steven Hammond was ready with an explanation. Sure, he had started the fire, he said. But he never meant to burn any land his family didn’t own…
If the government’s story and the Hammonds’ story weren’t divergent enough, a similar scenario played out in 2006. That year, the Justice Department said, Steven Hammond purposefully set a fire again without permission — this time to prevent wildfires started by lightning strikes from spreading to his property. The practice, called “back burning” or lighting “back fires,” can be effective, but it also endangers public property that abuts private ranch land. Firefighters were already battling blazes started by the lightning, and a “burn ban” was in effect…
Audubon statement: Occupation of #Malheur puts one of America’s most important wildlife refuges at risk https://t.co/IUOEehZsbo
— Don Belt (@dbelt50) January 4, 2016
For further context, Gizmodo has some more history — “Oregon Was Founded As a Racist Utopia”:
When Oregon was granted statehood in 1859, it was the only state in the Union admitted with a constitution that forbade black people from living, working, or owning property there. It was illegal for black people even to move to the state until 1926. Oregon’s founding is part of the forgotten history of racism in the American west…
Today, while 13 percent of Americans are black, just 2 percent of Oregon’s population is black. This is not some accident of history. It’s a product of oppressive laws and everyday actions that deliberately excluded non-white people from a fair shot at living a life without additional obstacles being put in their way…
Lots of GOP politicians supported Cliven Bundy’s lawbreaking. I wonder if that institutional support encouraged escalation by his son.
— David Roberts (@drvox) January 4, 2016
And Dana Milbank, in the Washington Post, knows where to point the finger:
… So why have the militants chosen this moment, more than a century after the fact, to “unwind all these unconstitutional land transactions,” as Bundy put it? Perhaps it’s because they think the political atmosphere now condones such anti-government activity.
You can see why they might think so. Several of the Republican presidential candidates have been encouraging lawbreaking, winking at it or simply looking the other way.
A few months ago, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and others rushed to defend Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk jailed for refusing to obey federal law. A federal judge had held her in contempt of court for refusing to recognize same-sex marriages, and the Supreme Court specifically declined to give Davis relief. But Cruz identified her jailing as “judicial tyranny” and said Davis was operating “under God’s authority.”
Donald Trump has put at the center of his campaign an extra-constitutional ban on admitting Muslims into the country. Marco Rubio said that if the law conflicts with the Gospel, “God’s rules always win,” and that “we are called to ignore” the government’s authority. Huckabee and Rick Santorum signed a pledge not to “respect an unjust law that directly conflicts with higher law.” Huckabee floated the notion of using federal troops to block people from getting abortions and questioned the Supreme Court’s authority…
Flirting with extremists helps conservative candidates harness the prodigious anger in the electorate. A poll released this weekend by NBC, Esquire and Survey Monkey found anger is particularly intense among Republicans: Seventy-seven percent said the news makes them angry at least once a day (compared with 67 percent of Democrats). Seventy-three percent of white Americans are angered daily (vs. 66 percent of Hispanics and 56 percent of African Americans)…
GOP pres cndts – lots to say on seizing #publiclands (just not today) https://t.co/PIlQ2m3QTK @katiezez @daveweigel pic.twitter.com/u1Q3YDAyXu
— Matt Lee-Ashley (@MLeeAshley) January 4, 2016
benw
I occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and all I got was this t-shirt, and some whisky, and some snacks. I really enjoyed the whisky and snacks.
amk
perpetually angry nuts with guns. what could possibly go wrong?
David Koch
Rubio is toast. The political media has moved on from fawning cheer leading to pointing fingers and mocking him.
David Koch
–
gene108
I really do wonder if the gun groups are cognizant of the fact their views on the Second Amendment encourage these militia nuts / white supremacists.
I’m pretty sure they are, but no one with resources to investigate ever bothers asking the question.
Mike J
@David Koch: ?
a different chris
@gene108: “Limited time only – every gun purchase includes a FREE! AM radio! You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”
ThresherK (GPad)
@a different chris: During the big Halloween Snowmageddon much of CT lost electricity for 5 days, and ours was out for 7. I had quite a diversion listening to far-away AM broadcasters without all the regular noise and static generated by ordinary suburban life. It put the clear back into clear channel.
Somehow.I don’t think that’s what you mean for them.
Mike J
@ThresherK (GPad): When I was a kid I would listen to WLS in Chicago. Of course other people were listening to stations (or one particular station)in my town
ThresherK (GPad)
I don’t think I bagged WLS. WBBM, yes. WOWO was a regular here from Indiana.
Nice song about the idea of radio.I’ll have to try some more of that band; the recording doesn’t have a particular timeframe sound to my ear.
How many generations of housecats now have no idea that radios and TV’s are supposed to emit heat in the winter?
a different chris
Yeah, not quite what I was thinking. More like the run-up to the Rwandan genocide, where I believe I recall hearing they gave away free radio-and-machete gift sets.
The rhetoric from our ‘Patriot’ pals isn’t all that different from what fueled the fires in Rwanda. Snow-c**t Sarah Palin and her ‘surveyor’s marks’… still can’t believe she got away with that. But they always do, don’t they?
Another Holocene Human
I guess the question is, how did we defeat fascism in the US the last time?
I know part of the answer is “end the depression and put people to work” and Obama accomplished a lot of that, but the economy has been so shitty for so long that there’s a long way to go. Plus we have a hostile court literally helping state governors fuck their states to keep the burden of poverty running.
Gimlet
This has great material for another Eastwood “Any Which Way…” movie.
I look forward to Philo Beddoe and Clyde interacting with the protesters.
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human:
We are staggering through an economic realignment that is comparable to nothing else that this society has been through.
At prior times of vast change, no matter how distressing the change was thought to be, we always had a a safety valve, a way out. For 300 and some years that way out was territorial expansion and resource discovery and exploitation. At the end of the last century, what pulled our fat out of the fire was our initial near monopoly of certain technologies during the tech boom. Ironically, that boom has helped to speed up the death of the cushion of intellectual/techno advantages over many other societies which also was a safety valve against economic distress.
As an entire society, we have to get better at acknowledging this vast economic change so then we can get on to dealing with this in a way that can diffuse some of the social-psychological currents that lead to abnormalities such as fascism.
When a politician implies that education our young’uns for the high skill/high pay jobs of the future is our way out, that is a dodge since the very nature of this new high tech economy is that fewer worker are needed than ever before. Some of the newly better-educated will scoop up the new jobs. Most will not. They will be better educated counter staff until they are replaces by a bot.
I am not optimistic, since no current politician (including Obama) has the guts to say truthful things about this galaxy of complications. Bernie comes closest which is why there is a hint of gut-level support of him in areas one might not have thought likely. But I do not see Bernie’s best use as the nominee but in a Warren-like position.
Our society is not ready to elect the leadership we need for this type of challenge and probably will not be until further trouble developed.
geg6
I am not looking forward to going to work this morning. There is a problem with a water line in my building and there will be no heat in the building until they fix it. Which they estimate will be noon at the earliest. But we are expected to show up at 8am anyway. We were told to bundle up. WTF?
HRA
The post above this one has the comments in an unusual form that takes up the entire page. ???
low-tech cyclist
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has set forth a proposal that the federal government cannot own more than half the land in any state.
Hey, I can work with that!
Because there’s a simple remedy: return any such state to territory status. Problem solved!
debbie
@David Koch:
Just when he’d recovered from gulping that water…
Patricia Kayden
If a group of armed Black people took over a government building to protest police shootings, the whole nation would be shouting that they were terrorists and should be taken out. They would not get away with it and no one one would negotiating with them to surrender.
It’s just amazing what White privilege can do for some people.
Let’s not forget that two participants in the first Bundy incident went on to shoot and kill two police officers so these people are violent.
kc
@Patricia Kayden:
Yep. This whole thing has got me seriously pissed off.
Tom
@geg6: One of the advantages of working from home.
Also, I get to watch the morning traffic and weather reports and smirk a lot.
Not to minimize your situation, though. I’ve been there and done that but I don’t think I could go back.
SiubhanDuinne
@a different chris:
Today is the fifth anniversary of the Tucson shooting. IIRC, Gabby Giffords was one of several politicians to have had the “surveyor’s mark” treatment from Palin & co.
Steve in the ATL
@geg6:
Call OSHA
J R in WV
Retirement is good.
I have to go out today for an appointment, even though it’s 38 and raining. But it is supposed to warm up a little and stop raining.
I have a new old truck, an F-150 with 113K miles. When I bought it it had bad ball joints, a leaking power steering line, bulbs out, etc. So it’s been in a shop I trust since I bought it. I just don’t feel good living on a farm without a farm truck. New Tires, too. I hope with the maintenance done it will be reliable for a while. I registered it yesterday, and got liability insurance, and a new plate. We’ll pick it up next thing when we get to town.
maya
@Patricia Kayden: Don’tcha know?
New hashtag: #WGWGLMM
(White Guys With Guns Lives Matter More)
Paul in KY
@David Koch: Rubio, if he was smart, would continue to wear them or get some bigger heels. If he now wears shoes with small heels, he’s been punked good & hard by them.
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: We had a lot of help from Imperial Japan.
The Lodger
@David Koch: Tsk. Momma told me never to criticize a man till I’d walked a mile in his shoes.
Now all we have to do is find someone willing to wear Rubio’s shoes…
tones
@Patricia Kayden: I think it is safe to say CNN would be touting the snipers as heroes by now…for having killed them all [if they where not white]