Trial for Militia Attack on Oregon - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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USA Today wrote:The alarming tale of a tense, deadly standoff at an eastern Oregon wildlife refuge that gripped the nation last winter and turned a spotlight on federal land management in the West is being retold at a federal courthouse in Portland.

The trial began Tuesday for Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan and five supporters who say they were exercising constitutional rights to speak freely and bear arms when they seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 300 square miles of wind-swept, high desert that before the protest was best known for a diverse population of waterfowl.

The federal government sees the issue differently, and all the defendants are charged with conspiring to impede federal land managers through force and intimidation. Five of the defendants also face gun charges.

No federal land management agency has announced any sweeping change in policy since the standoff, Bruce Huber, a Notre Dame law professor who specializes in natural resources, told USA TODAY.

"If anything, officials seem to be using more stern language than before Malheur," Huber said.

Bundy's group of self-described "patriots" seized the refuge administrative offices on Jan. 2 following a local protest in support of two ranchers sent to prison for starting fires on federal land. Bundy and many ranchers say tough federal restrictions on grazing and other uses threaten their way of life.


A more local source.

Two things I think are particularly galling about this trial.

1. They are not considered terrorists. As if Middle-Eastern Muslims, rifles in hand, stormed Federal property with the stated objective to, "Kill or be killed," would not have been shot or droned on day one. As if anybody can imagine armed Black Panthers taking over a federal building without a tank rolling in. Instead, this slap-on-the-wrist horseshit about "conspiring."

2. Second, they broke at least two rather severe Federal laws about desecrating Native American sites:

The Guardian wrote:Now it was the Bundy Bunch versus a Native American tribe – which claims first rights to the land – each demanding to have a say over the lingering standoff.

On Wednesday morning, Paiute tribal chairwoman Charlotte Rodrique stood before scores of people – including many of the 420-member tribe – at a press conference, saying that the Bundys and their gang were encroaching on land considered sacred to the Paiute people.

“Armed protesters don’t belong here,” she said. “By their actions they are desecrating one of our sacred traditional cultural properties. They are endangering our children, and the safety of our community, and they need to leave. Armed confrontation is not the answer.”

She said the sprawling wildlife reserve is part of the tribe’s ancestral territory and is protected under terms of an agreement signed with federal officials more than a century ago. The tribe still uses the refuge for sacred religious and cultural ceremonies, such as collecting plants for medicine and crafts.

“This land belonged to the Paiute people as wintering grounds long before the first settlers, ranchers and trappers ever arrived here,” Rodrique said, “We haven’t given up our rights to the land. We have protected sites there. We still use the land.”


Again:

On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Billy Williams released a report in district court which provides the first description of the condition of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, a site sacred to the Burns Paiute Tribe after a 41-day armed standoff with militants led by Ammon Bundy.

Disturbingly, Williams writes, “Occupiers appear to have excavated two large trenches and an improvised road on or adjacent to grounds containing sensitive artifacts. At least one of these trenches contains human feces.”

The refuge was once part of the 1.8 million acre Malheur Indian reservation which belonged to several Northern Paiute bands including the nearby Burns Paiute tribe. The buildings the militants occupied demanding the “return” of federal lands to ranchers, miners and loggers contained over 4,000 artifacts and maps of graves and other culturally significant sites on the refuge.

“That whole area is an artifact area,” Jarvis Kennedy, Burns Paiute tribal council member told ICTMN, “If you just walk across there you’ll see chips on the ground where someone made an arrowhead. It’s everywhere.”

When asked what he thought of the latrines Kennedy said, “Just see this…this is their mindset—not really caring about anything. For them to do that in that area is so disgusting.”

He doesn’t think the militants weren’t simply clueless either, “I think they didn’t care. We did our press conference. We took our stand. They knew.”


Incidentally, the Bundy clan was harassing the same group of Natives in Nevada.

The Natives get shit on enough, but it's galling that the Feds are going to just let armed militants come in and literally shit on the Natives with absolutely no consequence. After three centuries, the US could at least honor their own laws against criminals already on trial and give the Paiutes a mostly meaningless gesture. But they don't even get that.

Though, in the prosecution's defense, this was a relatively common tactic. They charge with conspiracy and add the other charges as trial comes closer—but Judge Brown stopped the other charges from coming on.

Finally, to connect this to a broader theme, here are some of the views of some of the Nevada terrorists that invaded Oregon:

Mother Jones wrote:Jon Ritzheimer

Anti-Islam activist, awaiting sentencing on a federal felony charge related to involvement in the Oregon occupation

Endorsement: Last December, Ritzheimer showed up with a bullhorn at a Trump rally in Arizona, where he expressed strong support for the candidate's proposal "to stop Islamic immigration for a while." He also referred to anti-Trump protesters as "Muslims" and thanked them "for not blowing us up."

In his own words: Ritzheimer said in an online video (since removed), "Just know that we three percent, we militiamen, are standing at the ready across our nation. And when you strike, we will strike back. We will level and demolish every mosque across this country."

Gerald DeLemus

Chief of security for Cliven Bundy at the Bundy Ranch standoff; pleaded guilty to two related federal charges

Endorsement: DeLemus was named co-chair of Veterans for Trump in New Hampshire in July 2015. Before his arrest, DeLemus told Reuters he intended to debrief Trump about the Oregon standoff: "I think it'll really arouse him."

In his own words: In 2013, DeLemus posted in an online forum, "If we do not stand against this insanity we can be sure we will fully slip into tyranny. We are in a similar position our Founding Fathers found themselves in, and their decision to stand was equally difficult."


Blaine Cooper

Participant in Oregon standoff; pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges related to the standoffs in Oregon and Nevada

Endorsement: "At least Donald Trump is offering a solution," he wrote on Facebook in June. "I know who gets my vote."

In his own words: Earlier this year, Cooper posted a video of himself on Facebook in which he said, "I'm serving [the country] the way that it should be served. Defending the Constitution from all enemies both foreign and domestic. And the [Bureau of Land Management] is definitely a domestic enemy of the Constitution of the United States."


Michele Fiore

Former Nevada legislator, an advocate for the occupiers in the standoffs in Nevada and Oregon

Endorsement: "If Trump becomes our nominee I will be his biggest fighter," she wrote on her website in May.

In her own words: Following the Paris terrorist attacks, Fiore stated on her weekend radio show, "I am not okay with Syrian refugees. I am not okay with terrorists. I'm okay with putting them down—blacking them out. Just put a piece of brass in their ocular cavity and end their miserable life." (Fiore later clarified that she was referring only to terrorists, not refugees, when she advocated shooting them.)
#14720278
I'm in favour of the double standard in this case. It seems that the cynicism of the left would prefer the government to regard the entire citizenry as potential terrorists instead of privileging, at the very least, the majority demographic group as men who are potentially of good character and sound mind. The notion that this privilege can or should be extended to black militants, Islamists, and Amerindian rebellions is simply insane and completely removed from reality. The Other is different from the majority group because the grievance of the former is against the hypocrisy of the entire system, rather than something that is potentially negotiable.

Ultimately, this is why identity politics are dangerous for most of the population. They are part of an accelerationist project that seeks to transform the State into an even more alienating entity, with the hypothetical goal of achieving greater solidarity between people (even though there is no evidence that this is possible or that it is the outcome that we can expect).
#14720291
This is partially about the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie.

The terrorists in this case were asking for Federal land (and treaties with the Natives) to be shredded apart and sold off to big companies and wealthy ranchers over the objections of the state and local communities.

That's a lot less objectionable to the bourgeoisie than Black Panthers protecting their communities or Middle-Easterners practicing a religious doctrine that the government has been encouraging for the last century.

And that's the real issue here.

That's why the state and local governments were not allowed to act by the Feds, and whythe GOP (in control of the Feds via Congress) fell in line behind the goals of the terrorists. It's, no doubt, part of the reason that Judge Brown only allowed the wimpiest charges to be applied to a group that, again, defined their goals as to, "kill or be killed."

The liberal will bend around to come up with a way to justify this kind of power dynamic in mental abstraction and find a contradiction and not understand how to deal with it. The simple fact is that we've reached a stage where the powers-that-be are okay with Black Hundreds.

This is in opposition to the height of the progressive nature of the bourgeoisie a century ago when they would have dealt with scum as scum should be treated.

Image
#14720315
The Immortal Goon wrote:This is partially about the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie.


Partially. There are still asymmetrical differences between these ranchers and, say, multinational conglomerates that are branched out in over a hundred countries. Another disincentive for the federal government in this case is how the culturally processed medium would have reacted to a heavy-handed approach against white people waving Gadsden flags.

The Immortal Goon wrote:This is in opposition to the height of the progressive nature of the bourgeoisie a century ago when they would have dealt with scum as scum should be treated.


So the bourgeoisie was progressive a century ago, but (presumably?) isn't today? I can accept the premise that capitalism, in the sense that it revolutionizes the means of production, is always moving forward within a "progressive" matrix; but this also means that things that actually hurt the working class, like wage stagnation in developed economies or welfare spending cuts, austerity, etc., are side-effects of the progressive material transformation occurring elsewhere in the world today (i.e. globalization). After all, Lincoln didn't free the slaves because it was the right thing to do. He did it so that civilization would continue to march on in all her vainglory and cruelty.
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Donald wrote:Another disincentive for the federal government in this case is how the culturally processed medium would have reacted to a heavy-handed approach against white people waving Gadsden flags.


Sure, though I suspect the two are ultimately related. In the most basic sense, the white people with Gadsden flags can be relied upon to protect a thoroughly reactionary set of ideals.

Donald wrote:So the bourgeoisie was progressive a century ago, but (presumably?) isn't today?


This is essentially true in this case, though we're both making simplifications. Globalization is something of a process that has been occurring for a long time:

Marx and Engels wrote:The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.


The destruction of slavery was, ultimately, an extention of the above process even if there were nuances attached to this particular act of progression by the bourgeoisie that still reverberates today.

But the bourgeoisie is now at a place where it can ultimately only try and stop the progress of history. Hence, people like the Bundys that want to go back, rifles in hand, topromote the ideals of 19th century robber-barons at are treated with silk gloves. Their predecessors that wanted to promote the ideals of 18th century slavers were hanged.
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The Immortal Goon wrote:The destruction of slavery was, ultimately, an extention of the above process even if there were nuances attached to this particular act of progression by the bourgeoisie that still reverberates today.

But the bourgeoisie is now at a place where it can ultimately only try and stop the progress of history. Hence, people like the Bundys that want to go back, rifles in hand, topromote the ideals of 19th century robber-barons at are treated with silk gloves. Their predecessors that wanted to promote the ideals of 18th century slavers were hanged.


I'm not sure how you can reconcile the idea that capitalism was progressive in the 19th century but in the 21st century it is only able to become reactionary. The revolutionizing of productive forces is very obviously not over, nor is the transformation of traditional cultures into atomistic ones.
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Donald wrote:I'm not sure how you can reconcile the idea that capitalism was progressive in the 19th century but in the 21st century it is only able to become reactionary. The revolutionizing of productive forces is very obviously not over, nor is the transformation of traditional cultures into atomistic ones.


Because elements of capitalism have produced a positive, progressive impact on the world, especially in regards to what came before it: the eventual abolition of slavery by capitalists was a progressive move in contrast to the slave-based economies of the ancient world, the use of slavery and servile labor in feudal economies, and the use of slavery in the economies of various early capitalist societies. Today, with capitalism dominant, it is not a progressive force. Progressive forms of capitalism can never abolish capitalism's inherent foundation of exploitation.
#14720561
Bulaba Jones wrote:Because elements of capitalism have produced a positive, progressive impact on the world, especially in regards to what came before it: the eventual abolition of slavery by capitalists was a progressive move in contrast to the slave-based economies of the ancient world, the use of slavery and servile labor in feudal economies, and the use of slavery in the economies of various early capitalist societies. Today, with capitalism dominant, it is not a progressive force. Progressive forms of capitalism can never abolish capitalism's inherent foundation of exploitation.


But, again:

The revolutionizing of productive forces is very obviously not over, nor is the transformation of traditional cultures into atomistic ones.

It seems entirely arbitrary that when capitalism abolishes slavery in the U.S. South (not even a feudal society) it is being "progressive," but not so its activity today, even though it continues to abolish older productive forms, patriarchal ties, etc.
#14720683
Good job fagging up what should have been a good thread where we laugh at a slack faced sovcit moron defending himself all the way to a life sentence you obsessive weirdos. Thanks for the piles of boring ass words I had to scroll past.



Lol Ammon planned to stay at the refuge for over a year but it sounds like they would have all died of plague and dysentery if they'd stayed a few more weeks. Just imagine how big their fecal trench would have gotten if they hadn't pussed out and run away.
#14720702
They occupied a federal wildlife building and interrupted the work they do there. For example, one of the workers there sets and collects traps that reduce the population of an invasive species of carp that was introduced to the waterways in the area. They also hacked into the computers in that building in an attempt to find data on some supposed conspiracy or evidence.

On top of fucking with federal property, they also harassed Harney County locals and stalked their head judge and the county sheriff.

When they weren't busy breaking the law they liked to spend their free time shitting in freshly dugup Indian burial grounds.

But all of that is boring. Lets talk about capitalism using a bunch boring words from a useless book and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
#14720724
Donald wrote:The revolutionizing of productive forces is very obviously not over, nor is the transformation of traditional cultures into atomistic ones.

It seems entirely arbitrary that when capitalism abolishes slavery in the U.S. South (not even a feudal society) it is being "progressive," but not so its activity today, even though it continues to abolish older productive forms, patriarchal ties, etc.


Without bogging this down too much about another topic, there isn't really anything progressive left for the bourgeoisie to do after it hit an imperial stage of development. More can be read there.

---

So far as the thread, it's always funny when someone says, "get a grip," on something like this.

"All that happened was that armed militants from another state toppled a government institution, broke federal treaties, and threatened federal officials while destroying their work at the end of a rifle. You'll note that everyone was hostile to their scheme to strip public land from the public and give it to developers, but there was something about the way they looked that separats them from black gangs or Muslim terrorists..."
#14720855
The Immortal Goon wrote:Without bogging this down too much about another topic, there isn't really anything progressive left for the bourgeoisie to do after it hit an imperial stage of development. More can be read there.
Or instead of wasting time on that drivel you could try: The myht of empire.

And it really is drivel, the idea that the Capitalists had some material interest in fighting wars. They may have decorated all the Generals who fought the war behind the lines

[youtube]94uCiI-J98Q[/youtube]

but the generals sons died as lieutenants and captains same as everyone else. In fact the Bourgeoisie and Aristocrats fought in greater proportion than the working class, particularly the miners and metal workers who were exempted from conscription. Winston Churchill didn't ask for a for front line commission after Gallipoli because it was in his material interests any more than the 300 stood against the Zoroastrian terror machine at Thermopylae because it was in their material interests. Warfare is extraordinarily expensive and the financial costs of total war are inevitability born by the bourgeoisie the aristocrats and the upper middle class.

Belgium did fine before it got an empire. Germany developed fine before it got an empire and after it lost it. Sweden developed fine without an empire. Why did Spain and Portugal become industrial backwaters? Empire was not a way to get rich but a way to piss away a nation' wealth.
#14720952
Fucking pretentious Marxist drivel ruins everything.

Ryan Bundy introduced himself to one of the MHWR employees by basically saying, "Oh hey we ransacked your office and destroyed a bunch of shit with your name on it. I feel like I've know you for years!"
#14720980
"Hey, did you know one of the people on trial is a stolen valor dipshit known as 'Fluffy Unicorn' and that-"

"HURRRR DURRR CAPITALISTIC ENTERPRISE IS NO LONGER THE POST-MODERNIZING COUNTER CULTURE THAT IT ONCE WAS AND-" *long wet fart punctuated by a stacatto of loose turd nuggets plopping out of pant legs and onto the floor*

Like for real stop being boring faggots you whiny nerds. This is one of the most entertaining news stories ever and you want to be pretentious assholes who, despite having absolutely no power in our current economic system, sure as hell feel entitled to tell everyone your boring opinion about it.

I will link the super awesome final four hours of the occupation later when I have access to a computer. You can hear people being sieged by the FBI live, on Internet radio. It fucking rules.
#14721466
[youtube]cOlrSain0lk[/youtube]

The guy who uploaded this and hosted the radio show, Gavin Seims, is a nut. He apparently really hates mandatory gratuities on checks for large parties and is not afraid to cause a scene to the point where the police get involved to fight it.
#14721475
Ammon is going to die in prison.

Even if he somehow outlived whatever sentence he's going to receive in Oregon, they are going to immediately ship him to Nevada to face charges for the Bunker Hill standoff.

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