Did they just go there? Yes. Yes they did. #Oregonstandoff #tonedeaf pic.twitter.com/A6Ll9lE2vg
— Gargoyle (@Patztense) January 31, 2016
I prefer “welfare ranchers”, but that’s because as a citified coastal elitist I have no allergy to the word socialism. Excellent read — even if you know all this already, it’s nice to have all the links in one place. Ryan Cooper, at The Week, on “The secret history of cowboy socialism”:
… Bundy’s ideas are nonsense — but they’re no more wrong than the entire creation myth of the American West. Though there have been Americans who could survive completely unaided in the West — men like Kit Carson and Jim Bridger — there were only a handful of them, and most were at least half-crazed. No society on Earth has ever functioned wholly on self-interested individualism — and that holds doubly true for the West. From the very start to the present day, Big Government has been the very bedrock of the settlement of the American frontier.
Before the West could be won, it first had to be stolen. Mexico still claimed sovereignty over most of the territory, so U.S. President James Polk ginned up a quick war to steal half of the unlucky country. Even afterwards, there were still tons of Indians living in the conquered territory, so U.S. authorities had to undertake a general program of ethnic cleansing to make way for white settlers. Smallpox had done the bulk of the heavy lifting there, but extensive white settlement still required the first major domestic government program in the West: the Indian Wars…
Once the Indians had been driven out (save for a few pitiful reservations composed of the most unproductive land in the region), white settlement was stoked with the first example of genuinely socialist policy: free land. A long series of laws gave sizable chunks of land (classically a quarter-section, or 160 acres) to individuals subject to proof that they were putting it into agricultural production. Railroads also got vast chunks as a way to fund new transportation, and mining companies could claim smaller bits with mineral reserves.
This was socialist both in the “free stuff from the government” sense and the Soviet sense, in that the land programs were conceptually unworkable, catastrophically mismanaged, and riddled with fraud…
As Marc Reisner details in his history Cadillac Desert, this is the basic problem with Western politics, even up to the present day. It has been from the very start handicapped by the reality that only extensive federal government projects could possibly facilitate the settlement and development of the region, but it has been too wedded to the cowboy mythology to admit it…
Read the whole thing, it’s not long but it’s very nutritious!
***********
Apart from mocking the Scrubland Revolutionaries, or whatever they’re calling this round of gun-fondling cosplay, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the weekend?
SiubhanDuinne
I love that they can’t even spell the last name of their hero-martyr LaVoy correctly. Morans.
Baud
So one rural white guy with a gun gets killed, and their commitment to “All Lives Matter” evaporates.
Funny.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Ha. You’re quite the copy reader.
Elizabelle
Rural lives matter. OK.
Looks like a good read. Thanks, Anne Laurie.
Baud
The Coffee — Soup — Conversation sounds delightful, however.
The Golux
Someone needs to tap Orwell’s grave. At the rate he’s spinning, he could power the entire planet.
maya
I prefer to think of them as Sagebrush Sagittarians.
And you will know us by the trail of dead.
redshirt
Does anyone know how Fox has been covering this issue? I’m curious if they’re ignoring it entirely or running with it 100%? Like, this rally seems like perfect Fox wall to wall coverage.
MattF
@The Golux: War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Three for three.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve seen enough RWNJ banners and posters to think that the always-present typo is intentional. It must be a signal for something secret…
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I had an interesting exchange with a 6 year old friend at his parents’ cafe (there was a brunch buffet today and he was drawing designs on white lunch bags to sell for his college fund).
ME: Hi kiddo, what’s new and exciting?
KID: I got student of the month!
ME: Congratulations! Did you know I’m older than the last time I saw you?
KID: ::slightly puzzled look::
ME: I had a birthday – it was great fun. Well, honestly at my age, birthdays aren’t really very much fun.
KID : Cause you don’t really have any friends. ::Big Smile:: That’s what the internet is for!!
I laughed until I very nearly cried.
Patricia Kayden
So once again White racists appropriate Black Lives Matter for nefarious purposes. As if their plight is in any way comparable to that of Black people being brutalized at the hands of law enforcement without any justice whatsoever.
Sickening.
Schlemazel
Here on the frozen tundra the government of the US isolated Sioux on reservations with little access to their food source. In December 1862 near starvation a hunting party raided a white farm to steal food and ended up killing 5 white people. The Army responded and the Dakota War killed many that starvation did not take. On the day after Christmas 38 tribal leader were hung in Mankato, the largest mass execution in US history. It would have been more but Lincoln pardoned as many as he could. Mn Governor was outraged that he was not allowed to hang more. All those brave independent go it alone settlers used the US Army to clear their land of its unwanted owners so they could live the Western dream of making it on their own
WarMunchkin
(link)
Sigh.
Elizabelle
The WaPost made a big point of the Confederate flags at a rolling rally for LaVoy. Poor little Burns, Oregon.
Makes me wonder if Finicum chose suicide by cop to keep the cause stirred up, never mind not being “caged.” He actually had some time to think about his last actions.
Ella in New Mexico
As this article nicely shows, the philosophical R’s have been fucking people over since this country was founded. And now we know why it’s so important for the Right to scrub public school history textbooks.
If their kids read any of the truth about what their parent’s forefathers did they might just suffocate them in their fucking sleep.
Thoughtful David
Haven’t read it yet, but there’s another program worth mentioning: buybacks of homesteaded land. So, in some places like Montana, settlers would go and get their Free Stuff government land as homesteaders, the traditional 160 acres. They’d try to make a go of it, and there’d be a drought or something, and they’d fail. So the government would buy back their 160 acres from them. So follow this:
Government GIVES you 160 acres for free.
You fail to make a living on it.
So the government pays you to buy it back–what they had already given you!
Sweet!
Buncha fucking socialists.
Roger Moore
While I understand the desire to criticize rural dwellers as a bunch of welfare queens, I think it’s a bad idea for two reasons:
1) It implicitly buys into right wing stigma surrounding welfare, which we should avoid.
2) It ignores that urban subsidies of rural areas are ultimately for the good of urban people. Like it or not, we need the food that’s grown on rural farms and raised on rural ranches, and we need the raw materials that come from rural mines and forests. It’s in the best interests of everyone to make sure the people providing those things can live decent lives, or our whole society will grind to a halt.
Felonius Monk
@Schlemazel: And here all the time I thought Minnesota was that idyllic place shown in Little House on the Prairie, but it was really the native Americans Lake Woebegone.
A Humble Lurker
Hey, I may have a kitten looking for a home in the south side Chicago suburb area. An old neighbor of mine had a kitten follow them home and no one’s responded to the signs. Asked me if I or anybody I knew could take it. I’m not set up for it so…anyone want a kitten? I think it’s what WereBear would call an Alpha.
OzarkHillbilly
Hey Losers… Get a job.
Doctor Science
@redshirt:
Burying it, as much as possible. I go by foxnews.com every few days to check up on what they’re selling, and at one point fairly early in the process (c. day 6-10) I remember noticing that there were *NO* front-page posts about it. At the same time, there was a “most comments” sidebar, and the last article they had up about it had more than *30,000* comments.
So it definitely looks to me as though Fox was doing its best to keep the whole thing off the radar, even though their audience really wanted to rant about it.
Mike in NC
“Prairie Parasites” sounds appropriate for these boobs.
Anne Laurie
@Baud:
Well, that’s the nut of the argument, isn’t it? When these guys see “(X) Lives Matter”, they invariably construe it as “Our Lives Matter” — because in their minds, the world is invariably Us against Them.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: You forgot “Arbeit macht frei.”
Schlemazel
@Roger Moore:
I have only a few niggling issues with the rural welfare, things that could be fixed. But I have no problem letting the farmers know it is welfare and they should be aware when they whine about welfare it must include their own. Food stamps, WIC and many other ‘urban’ welfare payments also go to support the production of food & farmers benefit from them as well as people who have a little more to eat. All of this is interlocked and we really should keep in mind that even those of us who do not farm and who can afford to pay for our own meals without help also benefit. These rural welfare queens are not against their handouts but everyone elses. they should be shamed into recognizing that.
El Caganer
@Felonius Monk: Some of most horribly iconic photographs of lynching are from 1920 in Duluth.
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: Prairie Parasites. Most excellent!
Schlemazel
@Felonius Monk:
I have never read the little house in the ‘X’ books but I understand that Ms Wilder was a bit of an anti-Indian racist herself and it is her grandkids, milking the stories for their own income, have tried to clean that up a bit. Hollywood and that dreadful TV show help to white wash (literally and figuratively) the history of the midwest written in native blood.
Gimlet
Editorial ‘toon
http://assets.amuniversal.com/3d217fd0a90b01333897005056a9545d
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Been saying for ages that the tale of westward expansion was one of failure after failure of rural whites. After they failed, there was always some free land to be given for free to failed white folks to entice them further west.
Of course, once all the good parcels were taken, these would be the same smug fuckers to talk about bootstraps and hard work and how black folks just don’t work hard.
This episode has been a godsend of an educational experience – it punctured the notion of the self-made rancher.
WaterGirl
@Schlemazel: Rural welfare.
ThresherK
I’m reading a great book about aridity in the West and its natural manmade-assisted outcome. I can’t wait to see what happens!
Schlemazel
@El Caganer:
Gotta cut them some slack, they had to take the damn Irish, isn’t that suffering enough? h/t Olson Johnson of Rock Ridge
lgerard
Back in the early 80’s Denzel and Nancy Ferguson wrote a book called “Sacred Cows at the Public Trough” about their experiences managing public resources. I looked into getting a copy, but the price is astronomical
SiubhanDuinne
@WarMunchkin:
Don’t know many details, but apparently the Cruz campaign has run afoul of the Iowa Secretary of State’s office. Seems The Man from Calgary sent out lots of official-looking documents emblazoned VOTER VIOLATION naming not only the addressee but also six or so close neighbors. The “violation” in question was a grade of “F” from the SoS for not having voted in the past few elections. Naming and shaming for something that is by no stretch illegal. These people are the scum we always knew they were. I have no idea what, if any, sanctions might be brought to bear on whichever Cruz staffer dreamed this up. Probably none.
Schlemazel
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
and that goes back to the Ingalls story. Paw Ingalls moved the family from Wisconsin to Minnesota, to Iowa, to Minnesota, to South Dakota and probably a couple more I am forgetting. Beside the upheaval and danger this put upon his family you have to wonder how bad a farmer he was that he couldn’t make a go of it anywhere. Bad farmer or maybe a gigantic ass who made enemies everywhere?
oldster
I share Anne Laurie’s feelings about the word “socialist”–since it’s not a slur, I’m not sure I want to apply it to them.
So instead how about “moochers and looters”?
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
I can be really annoying.
ThresherK
@Schlemazel: Plus the ‘tude, oh how they’re overboard with the attitude.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
We need our own RWNJ Enigma machine.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: I would expect nothing less from a scoundrel.
redshirt
@Doctor Science: Thanks. That’s what I figured they’d do with this, since it doesn’t really support their corporate interests.
Also, another file to add to the wingnut’s index of reasons why “Fox News is liberal”.
Yes, they really believe that.
oldster
@Schlemazel:
Plus, weren’t the “Little Prairie” books largely written by Laura’s daughter (from Laura’s memoirs), who was in Ayn Rand’s circle? The one who declared FDR a dictator. You can read the sordid details here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Wilder_Lane
Yup–a pretty classic glibertarian: publicizes a nostalgia-heavy myth about how things were back before the gummint ruined everything, while blithely ignoring that the gummint gave her father everything he had, until he drank it away.
Heliopause
You know, fair reparations for slavery would be really damned expensive. Fair reparations for stealing the entire continent and giving it to this bunch of crackpots would be…..let’s see…..carry the one….I’ll have to get back to you.
lgerard
@SiubhanDuinne:
You would think that after the kerfuffle that political scientists from Stanford and Dartmouth experienced when they did this in Montana in 2014, Cruz night have realized that this is a bad idea.
people don’t like to think someone is tracking whether they vote or not, even if it is a public record.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Baud:
Life is a never-ending struggle between correcting people’s grammar and having friends.
raven
If you have not see the PBS doc “The West” it is well worth the time.
As Frank Zappa said,
Chris
Even the mythology can be useful if pondered on for a minute.
How does your stereotypical Western end? Right, with the cavalry arriving in the nick of time to save everyone. Even in the traditional films that created this mythology, the cowboy was a hero who spent the entire movie getting in completely over his head, and eventually required the federal government to step in and save him from his own mess.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@lgerard:
Exactly. And, of course, the Secretary of State doesn’t issue “grades” to voters based on how often they vote.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Schlemazel:
Combination, I’ve long surmised. You don’t leave a farm that’s producing.
Daniel Boone was a dickbag, too, as were all those Tennessee assholes who wound up taking over in Texas.
Bitter Scribe
They prefer local government because the voters on the federal level elected a ni-clang. End of story.
raven
Interestingly, to me anyway, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Kentucky, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as Louisiana east of the Mississippi River in the Civil War was know as the Western Theater.
The Pale Scot
What’s the old saying?
raven
Dang
Signe Anderson, Jefferson Airplane’s original female vocalist who sang on the band’s 1966 debut LP Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, passed away January 28th. Anderson was 74.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
Jeez. Now Signe Anderson has died. Tough week for Jefferson Airplane.
Edit: Raven in first.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Same day as Paul.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@The Pale Scot:
Salt of the earth, authentic folks in the heartland…
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: I typed the flyer for them.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@raven:
I know, how weird is that? It’s like Adams and, uh, Jefferson.
Shana
@debbie: Like the misspellings on chinese menus?
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Adam L Silverman:
You done good.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Doug Flutie’s parents both died the same day this fall.
satby
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): sounds like that college fund will be put to very good use! Belated Happy Birthday!
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: I thought it was:
Yeu dunn guud
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: I sorta miss the paranoid you tubes they were releasing.
Ohio Mom
@oldster: Yep, Laura’s daughter Rose helped start the Libertarian movement. I never heard that Pa drank though — my source is a long-ago read Judith Thurman article in the New Yorker. I’ll have to Google it up and give it another look.
Thurman points out not only how the Ingalls family benefited from the government’s largess but also the specific places where Laura and Rose wrote those instances out — for one, the fact that government enabled Mary to go to that school for the blind.
All in all, they were a bitter lot. After Laura had money and one of her sisters’ family was destitute and asked for help, Laura rather cruelly rejected her. Rereading the first book as an adult, I was struck by how abusive child rearing was back then. They were all scarred so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised family members ended up as Libertarians.
I think the books would have faded into a well-deserved obscurity by now if not for that sacacrine TV series — which the family had nothing to do with, and which deviated so far from the real stories that “deviated” isn’t a strong enough word.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Adam L Silverman:
Fuckin’ autocorrect strikes again.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@raven:
Both of natural causes?
raven
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:
Soylent Green
Not if you bought it when it was published, as I did, for $8.95. And now I see that Amazon’s price is only $2,779.76 (!). What’s it worth to you?
MomSense
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Out of the mouths of babes. Kiddo sounds like a future balloon-juicer.
lgerard
@Soylent Green:
The Boston Public Library has a copy although it does not circulate. I will have to add it to the other 100 books that can only be read in the reading room that I intend to read some day when I have 6 months with nothing else to do
sm*t cl*de
I don’t suppose it would do any good to remind them that Jack Yantis was killed by county cops, hired by the local (elected) sheriff.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel:
Love the new nym.
I would choose the grammar.
Soylent Green
@lgerard: Looking at it just now, I’m reminded what a masterful work it is.
Chip Daniels
I have only recently become aware of how extensive the history of non-Marxist sockulism is.
The idea that the some of the factors of production could and should be under public control was actually noncontroversial for most of our history. The Cold War was really when the ideas of Adam Smith seem to have become cemented as dogmatic theology for American politics, sort of a reaction to the rigid ideology of the Soviets.
I mean, land giveaways, public transportation, public control of crop prices and regulation of business was advocated or resisted, not on some abstract ideological rounds but usually on narrow self interest. When you read political disputes from the 19th century, there isn’t a whole lot of talk about economic theory.
Prescott Cactus
: @raven:
Thats sad stuff. Makes saying “I’m having a bad day” seem pretty awful in comparison.
lgerard
@Soylent Green:
now you’re making me jealous
i might have to pop for the 150 dollar one I saw on Bookfinder
The Republic, Blah Blah Blah...
So I see these nitwits are holding their 100 Clown Demonstration next Saturday in HALFWAY, Oregon.
I wonder if they realize how appropriate that is…
Perhaps that s/b their theme song…
Tommy
Oh the myth of the American West is so true. I recalled reading Undaunted Courage about Lewis and Clark and I had no idea at many times on their journey if it wasn’t for the help of Native Americans they would have almost surely died a terrible death.
Svensker
@raven:
Saw the Airplane in Seattle with Signe, right before she left and Grace took over. I’m pretty sure it was a good show. First “light show” for me which even in my, ahem, state of mind at the time, seemed really lame.
Dang, we are getting old and all the flowers of our yute are withering and dying.
Miss Bianca
@Svensker:
Damn, I was just cranking some JA today in honor of Paul Kantner’s passing, and as “Chauffeur’s Blues” came on I seriously found myself thinking, “I wonder if Signe Anderson is still alive?” Creepy! Sad. I always wondered if she ever regretted giving up the Airplane…altho’ I seriously doubt they would have ever been more than just another SF band without Grace…
Tommy
I clearly think climate change is reality and if we don’t do something drastic about it yesterday in the not to distant future (and currently really) things are going to get pretty bleak for humans. But then I watch the 60 Minutes story called “On Top of the World” and I realize it is even worse than I thought and again I am pretty doomsday already about it.
If you have 15 or so minutes I strongly suggest you stream it at the 60 Minutes website. They go to the basecamp of researchers at the top of Greenland studying one of the largest glaciers in the world. Twice in the past couple years chunks of it much larger than Manhattan have broken off. Over the past decade or two it had receded by 20 miles.
They then explain the core samples they have gathered. They show temps up and down up and down over tens of thousands of years. The reporter then asked if the top of the sample that shows a temp change right now isn’t just a cycle.
But the scientist says nope, look at the other changes in temp. They were over the course of centuries. These changes happened overnight.
I think to a large extent 60 Minutes is a shell of it former self, but they sure got it right on this story.
Steve in the ATL
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: @Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
For the record, i moved from Tennessee to Georgia so I’m ok, right?
Steve in the ATL
@Tommy: I had to write a paper in high school on the Frontier Thesis and even as a kid I could tell it was bullshit
Miss Bianca
@Ohio Mom:
This is what I’d heard about Rose, as well. Let’s see…Pa Ingalls was at least a recluse, if not an out and out crank, since even the tiniest of settlements seems to have been too much for him, Ma was an unapologetic racist, Mary was a total snot till blindness made her a saint…man, Laura sure had a weird family. Why did I like these books so much again?
And as for the settlement of the great American West, someday I plan to enrage the plebes by writing a history of the Homestead Act called, “If At First You Don’t Succeed, Fail, Fail Again”.
Steve in the ATL
@Miss Bianca: i have to think that Jefferson Airplane would be remembered more fondly if not for the atrocities of the Starship years
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Svensker:
That’s a really good sentence.
:: claps admiringly ::
Tommy
@Steve in the ATL: After reading the book a second time I wondered if the story of Lewis and Clark had been totally whitewashed in my text books and the shows I saw on them. It is just so clear that the Native Americans were only curious and friendly. Only one small skirmish the entire time and lucky nobody on either side was seriously hurt.
What is so sad to read was when they would sit and talk with them they all almost asked the same question. Are more of you coming and basically what are your intentions? Reading the book in hindsight, like many years later, you realize how important of a question this was and that Lewis and Clark had no idea what would come of their trip.
Miss Bianca
@Steve in the ATL:
Are you blaming Grace for Starship? ; ) (As opposed to Jefferson Starship, which had some pretty cool output)…
Ah, Grace, you’ll always be my girl, but “We Built This City” could certainly be excised from the public memory…
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Miss Bianca: “Jane”?
Cheers,
Scott.
Shana
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Someone on BJ (perhaps you?) mentioned a Christmas gift they got. A coffee cup that said “Silently correcting your grammar”
Ohio Mom
@Miss Bianca: Maybe we read and reread the Little House books because back then there weren’t that many books with girls we could identify with as main characters? I also loved “Harriet the Spy” during that stage.
Steve in the ATL
@Miss Bianca: I’ll leave it up to our friends at the Hague to assign blame, but “We Built This City” is neck and neck with “Philadelphia Freedom” as the worst hit song ever
And now I should probably conclude the Claret-and-posting portion of my evening….
lgerard
@Miss Bianca:
I heard an interview with Signe about 2 years ago. She was very glad to get out as she had just had a baby and was very unhappy touring. She didn’t sound like she had any regrets, although she had a very hard time subsequently with 2 bouts of cancer
Ohio Mom
@Tommy: I can’t bear to think too much about climate change and the human chaos that will result. I’m figuring I might not live long enough to experience the brunt of it but my autistic only child…?
I generally don’t think much of the coping mechanism that consists of sticking fingers in ears and singing la-la-la, I can’t hear you, but it is the only way I can cope.
Miss Bianca
@Ohio Mom:
Could be – but I’m pretty sure that “Harriet the Spy” would still hold up.
Miss Bianca
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Ouch. Yeah, that one too. I’m blaming Marty Balin for that one. Even if it wasn’t him.
WereBear
@A Humble Lurker: Email Anne Laurie with some pics and we’ll try to get the ball rolling.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Miss Bianca: I heard it about a million times when I lived in Chicago during Jane Byrne’s term as Mayor. I liked the song, but come on… :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Tommy
@Ohio Mom: If I am lucky I will live anther 40 or so years. I don’t have kids but a 6-year-old niece, my gosh I worry for her and what the future with even more climate change might mean for her.
Update: I’ve always felt that when I am a very old man she will just be in her 40s and she’ll ask me why I didn’t do more when there was a chance to change things.
Mai.naem.mobile
I watch rw douchebag Joe Kernen on CNBCs Squawk Box and hes such an obnoxious climate change denier. The guy has a science degree from MIT. I just hope he owns some oceanfront property that falls into the ocean. I don’t get the climate change deniers when so many of the remedies are related to increasing efficiency and having energy from different sources so that we aren’t just dependent on one source with the collateral benefit of not being dependent on tinpot dictators.
Citizen_X
@Chip Daniels:
That probably kept the economic arguments a hell of a lot more grounded than what we get today.
J R in WV
When I was a kid they tried to teach us that West Virginia had no resident Indians, that they just came here to hunt, and then went home.
But my Grandma’s farm had a big flat rock in the back yard, with two big depressions where they ground corn. It takes many many years to grind a home in hard rock. And hunters don’t bring whole corn with them to grind. And there were thousands of worked stone implements, awls, points, scrapers and knives, scattered on the ground. They turned a whole new group of them up each spring.
It takes thousands of years to accumulate that many abandoned tools in the ground.
There were tens of thousands of Native Americans living in WV before the Spanish brought European diseases to North America. They herded pigs all over the continent, and those pigs spread all kinds of diseases among the Natives of this land.
GRrrrr!
Origuy
i had to check if Jorma Kaukonen is still kicking. Looks like he is still active. His solo album Quah is one of my favorites from the Airplane/Starship/Hot Tuna genre .
jenn
Hey, just a quick request – can we not lump all ranchers in with these asshats? I know a number of ranchers, including several nearish Malheur, and only one of them do I suspect to be vaguely supportive of this crap. Also, I know quite a few ranchers who are heavily involved in conservation work.
Omnes Omnibus
@jenn: Why not? People lump people in other professions together all the time. Why should ranchers be special?
Original Lee
@Miss Bianca: I liked the bits that (it turns out) Laura actually wrote, such as butchering a hog or getting ready for a dance, helping Pa make bullets, Ma making a starling pie. I wasn’t so keen, even as a child, on a lot of the storytelling.
Death Panel Truck
I had relatives in my dad’s family who lived in Halfway, Oregon. I’ve been meaning to go there to check out the local cemeteries to find their graves. Hope the hillbillies haven’t taken over the town before then.
jl
@Elizabelle: Sad that the loons won’t leave that poor town alone.
Keeping with the theme of the post, and delusions of sovereign citizens, might be good time to repeat that it was federal government troops who won the land for nice white rich corporate and individual welfare ranchers back in the 19th century. The Paiute whipped all the white local militias they met. The local whites were dumbfounded and figured that the Paiutes must have had sinister hidden direction from the Mormons, who were trying to colonize W Nevada and SE Oregon at the time.
Actually, a group of Mormons did ‘colonize’ some canyons near Reno. They went nuts and turned into gangs rustling cattle and robbing people. Mormons in Salt Lake City sent an investigative team, which concluded that these colonists had gone crazy, and they were disowned.
History repeats itself. And, the Paiutes whipped the desperado Mormon militia too.
Virginia Highlander
@J R in WV:
Long-dead conversation, but actually for the most part that is correct. The highlands were depopulated some centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The reasons are not entirely understood, but by the time of European settlement no one lived in the central Appalachians, by treaty. This was part of why Native Americans so strongly objected to white settlers violating that inter-tribal agreement.
Elizabelle
@jl: That would make a movie.
pseudonymous in nc
Same with Alaska, the land of ‘subsidized subsistence’, courtesy of the late Ted Stevens and Don Young and the oil revenue checks that get divvied out to those rugged individualists.