The scary (but peaceful! so so peaceful) give us all the federal land guys forgot to bring food with them.
Imraan Siddiqi @imraansiddiqi Jan 3
Do you think they would accept a falafel care package?
Isn’t the mail a federal thing?
Also…who do they think is going to deliver the snacks once they have arrived in Burns? How do they think anyone is going to deliver them? Also why didn’t they plan ahead?
On CNN at least one person gets it about Bundy’s army, saying they’re domestic terrorists, duh.
(On the other hand CNN has a breaking news headline at the top of the page saying Ammon Bundy “holds briefing” – as if he were an official. He’s not holding a “briefing,” he’s a violent criminal saying things on camera.)
Let’s begin with what to call the Oregon anti-government protesters who have taken over a federal building. The men, heavily armed, urging others to come support their cause, and claiming somehow that, while peaceful, they will “defend” themselves whatever it takes, are — by any definition — domestic terrorists.
It does not matter that they insist they are peaceful or some sort of lawful militia; I can claim I’m 26 years old and a size 2 and that still doesn’t make it true. This group of men is wielding terror, and the threat of violence, as if it were their constitutional right.
Damn right. They’re using guns to break the law, to grab and hold public property, to draw attention to themselves, to resist arrest.
They are dangerous, they are unforgiving, they are flouting federal law, they have a political purpose and they clearly are willing to use violence to get their way. Simply because they are not Muslim jihadists does not mean they are authorized to threaten or use violence to support their political cause.
Could the news media possibly take that in and then retain it?
Originally a comment by cazz on These are men with guns who have declared themselves outside the law.
This is the ‘new’ reality of the Rural West. Armed, well off, mostly white males looking for a fight. These are not the hunters and ‘varmint’ shooters of previous generations, but NRA and talk radio fueled bullies open carrying through parking lots and grocery stores looking for some reason to show off their faux manhood, any reason.
They have no reason for rebellion other than repeated refrains of “Government Comin’ for Your Guns” and palpable fears of the Pending Race War.
I’ve lived in the rural PNW for over 30 years, and I’ve watched this generation of “Patriots” with growing concern, and I have counted some of these guys as friends and co-workers. Some of these folks are even liberal in every way you can count, except for the fact that they “need to arm themselves for the upcoming “. They spend their weekends either on the shooting range or at any one of the local fair grounds sure to have a “gun show” where they can add to their collections.
Or, if they happen to own acreage, they’re out target practicing on it usually with semi-automatic weapons, making any given weekend afternoon sound like a war zone in my back yard.
I’ve even been a unwilling party to a near shooting incident in a state campground where one person decided to challenge another’s right to camp in a certain spot, ending in nearly all the males in the whole campground strapping on their holsters and parading around a campground where infants and children were present. After the Sheriff left, things quieted down, until after midnight and one brave soul decided to punctuate his displeasure by starting up drunken ‘target practice’ in the woods.
Personally, I blame the NRA. At one time, more that 30 years ago, the NRA stood for gun safety and responsible gun ownership. Sometime after that, they became what has to be the most successful marketing entity in the US, using fear of “Government Gun Grabs” and fictional race wars as effective as any jingle or slogan ever was.
The New York Times on the fascist insurrection in Oregon:
Federal officials said on Sunday that they were monitoring the armed takeover of a remote federal wildlife refuge in the rural southeastern corner of Oregon.
Ok let me stop you right there.
Why are they monitoring it? Why are they allowing armed men to grab and hold a federal building, however small and remote? Would they be simply monitoring it if the armed men were black or foreign or Muslims?
The occupation, which began Saturday afternoon, appeared to be led by Ammon Bundy, a rancher whose family became a symbol of anti-government sentiment in 2014, when his father inspired a standoff between local militias and federal officials seeking to confiscate cattle grazing illegally on federal land.
What do they mean “anti-government sentiment”? It’s pro-theft sentiment is what it is. Federal land doesn’t belong to them personally to exploit for free for their personal profit. It belongs to all of us collectively, which means that we don’t get to exploit it for free for our personal profit. Bundy can’t put his cattle on his neighbor’s land, so why should he be able to put them on our land? Bundy wants to help himself to a public resource and threaten to shoot people who try to stop him. He’s an armed robber. Normally the law doesn’t “monitor” armed robbers on the job.
The Bundys have been organizing opposition to the government case against the Hammonds on social media in recent weeks, which they described as a tyrannical use of federal authority.
“We’re out here because the people have been abused long enough,” Ammon Bundy said in a separate video posted to Facebook on Saturday.
He called the prosecution of the Hammonds “a symptom of a very huge, egregious problem” that he described as a battle over land and resources between the federal government and “the American people.”
“The people cannot survive without their land and resources,” he said. “We cannot have the government restricting the use of that to the point that it puts us in poverty.”
Mr. Bundy described the federal building as “the people’s facility, owned by the people” and said his group was occupying it to take “a hard stand against this overreach, this taking of the people’s land and resources.”
He said the group would remain there indefinitely and told an interviewer that he hoped more supporters would join them. “We have a facility that we can house them in,” he said, referring to the occupied building.
“We pose no threat to anybody,” Mr. Bundy said. “There is no person that is physically harmed by what we are doing.” He added that if law enforcement officials “bring physical harm to us, they will be doing it only for a facility or a building.”
They’re armed. Of course they post a threat to anybody.
The government should extradite them to Ferguson.
Charles Pierce in Esquire on the fascist uprising in Oregon:
This is an act of armed sedition against lawful authority. That is all that it is, and that is quite enough. This is not “an expression of anti-government sentiment.” Flipping off the governor as he drives by is “an expression of anti-government sentiment.” What Alex Jones does every day is “an expression of anti-government sentiment,” and god bless them all for it. That’s what the Founders had in mind. This is not an “occupation” following “a peaceful protest.” That would be all those folks who got bludgeoned and pepper-sprayed out of Zuccotti Park a couple of years back. (And when exactly did ABC News decide it wasn’t a news organization anymore?) These are men with guns who have declared themselves outside the law. These are men with guns who have taken something that belongs to all of us.
Taken it in order to use it to make money for themselves. That’s not “rebellion” or “protest”; it’s just grabbing public property for yourself.
These are traitors and thieves who got away with this dangerous nonsense once, and have been encouraged to get away with it again, and they draw their inspiration not solely from the wilder fringes of our politics, either. Ammon Bundy and his brothers should have been thrown in jail after they gathered themselves in rebellion the first time.
As should Cliven. Why weren’t they?
This is another step down the road that leads to the broken shell of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. There are respectable people in our respectable politics who have been shamefully silent on the subject, and there are respectable people in our respectable media who seem terrified of calling this what it is. You want an example of the deadening effect of “political correctness” in our politics? Watch what the people running for president have to say about this episode. Look at how it is being framed already—or ignored entirely—by the elite political media. There is a constituency for armed rebellion in this country that is larger than any of our respectable political and social institutions want to admit. It is fueled by reckless, ambitious people who engage in reckless, ambitious rhetoric.
And that’s how fascism takes root and grows. It’s not some kind of mysterious magic; it’s a process of persuasion and incitement.
It does us no good to ignore what is going on in this obscure little corner of the Pacific Northwest. It does us no good to refuse to hold to account the politics that led to this, and the politicians who sought to profit from it. It does us no good to deny that there is a substantial constituency for armed sedition in this country, and to deny the necessity of delegitimizing that constituency in our politics, and the first step in that process is to face it and to call it what it is.
And, in related news, of course, Tamir Rice is still dead.
God bless America.
Unbelievable. From the Washington Post:
An armed militia took over a building at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon late Saturday and vows to occupy the outpost for years to protest the federal government’s treatment of a pair of ranchers facing prison time.
The occupation of a portion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge 30 miles southeast of Burns, Ore., followed a peaceful march for ranchers Dwight Hammond, 73, and Steven Hammond, 46, who are scheduled to report to federal prison in San Pedro, Calif., on Monday after being convicted of arson, according to the Oregonian.
A peaceful march? By an armed militia? There is no such thing.
Among the occupiers are several members of the Bundy family, whose patriarch — Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy — was involved in an armed standoff with government agents over grazing rights in 2014.
And as far as I can tell he’s never been prosecuted for that. Here’s a bit from the Wikipedia entry on the subject:
On May 8, Clark County sheriff’s officials said that they were interviewed by the FBI as part of an investigation into armed Bundy supporters who confronted federal officers during the standoff.[113] The investigation was confirmed by Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, who stated “I’ve said all along there has to be accountability for what took place on April 12.”[114]
Joe Lombardo, who was in charge of police officers at the scene and who was interviewed on May 1, said the FBI agents were primarily interested in who was pointing weapons at federal agents, and that he expected the FBI to be poring over videotapes and photos taken during the standoff in order to identify people making threats.[79]
There was an investigation; it may still be in progress; but Cliven Bundy is not in prison, let alone shot to death as Tamir Rice was.
Back to the Post:
Ryan Bundy told the Oregonian that the group isn’t holding hostages and doesn’t want to resort to violence but will not rule it out if authorities attempt to remove the occupiers from the property. He said many of the occupiers would be willing to fight — and die — to reclaim constitutionally protected rights for local land management, according to the Associated Press.
…
The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was established on August 18, 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds,” according to the park’s website.
“The Refuge represents a crucial stop along the Pacific Flyway and offers resting, breeding, and nesting habitat for hundreds of migratory birds and other wildlife,” a statement on the site says. “Many of the species migrating through or breeding here are highlighted as priority species in national bird conservation plans.”
So humans can’t use that particular land to make money from ranching.
Late Saturday, the occupiers blocked the entrance of the federal headquarters with a pickup truck and placed an American flag over the welcome sign, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. An Oregon State Police car “idled by the side of the road just outside Burns,” the broadcaster reported, but there were no signs of a larger law enforcement presence in the area.
Well of course the “occupiers” are white. If they weren’t white I daresay there would have been more than a single cop car idling by the side of the road.