Victoribus Spolia wrote:Wasn't the objection to the federal ownership an aside to the actual reason for the protest which was paying federal grazing fees and later with the charge of arson because of an unauthorized controlled burn?
Sure, the Bundys wanted to functionally own the land rather than pay the public for use of the public's land. And so far as the arson charges, the Hammonds wanted nothing to do with the Bundys and publically denounced them. Also, so far as the Hammonds are concerned, the charges were for starting fires to assist in poaching.
Sure, these guys oppose federal ownership of lands, so what? There are plenty of non-millionaries that also don't like public ownership like this, but the actual complaints seem a bit more specific on the part of the Bundy clan.
The complaints basically all boil down to the idea that they, and other wealthy interests (mining interests come up often) should be able to have public lands for free.
Likewise, its not like all of those one-percenter cowboys got anything out of this, the federal lands are still federal lands, you almost write as if this land ended up being given to the bundy boys and their buddies. It hasn't.
They got a walk after taking over a federal facility with force of arms.
And their buddies are getting what they want.It's, perhaps,
also worth noting the company that the Bundys kept before the Oregon incident, is probably well different than that of your father:
SPLC wrote:as was widely publicized, Jerad and Amanda Miller, a couple who had spent time at the Bundy ranch during the standoff, executed two police officers inside a Las Vegas pizza parlor in early June. Leaving a Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, a note saying the revolution had begun and a swastika on the officers’ bodies, the Millers went on to murder another man before dying in a shootout with police. Months earlier, Jerad Miller was photographed with former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, a prominent antigovernment activist who also visited the Bundy ranch.
Undoubtedly, a large rancher will have a net worth in the millions soley on the basis of how many heads of cattle he has and how much acreage he owns, but this is a bit deceptive. My father-in-law owns 500 acres and a large grain farm and lives quite poorly even though based on property and equipment value he would be considered a net-worth millionaire. Despite this net worth, he lives in a double-wide mobile home and can't rub two pennies together on a given Sunday....I'm not saying the bundies are a 1-to-1 correlation to my father-in-law on this, but you seem to unqualifiedly put them in a category with Koch brothers. It doesn't seem to be the same thing and I don't think most Americans would quantify it in that manner either, especially if it is a multi-generation farming family.
The Bundys (allegedly) do.
And,
as reported, the big swamp businesses took a bug chunk out of public land for themselves.
Here's an article with citations.This is an odd claim, though this whole thing seems a tad conspiratorial and is drenched in your dialectic, it seems that labeling this a foregone conclusion was a bit presumptuous and even a blind squirrel will find a nut every once in awhile.
It is hardly a conspiracy to recognize that the general point of capitalism is to make as much money as possible by spending as little as possible in able to get as large of a profit as possible.
And it was hardly a stretch of an analysis when politicians were falling over themselves to say as much:
Marco Rubio wrote:And I agree that there is too much federal control over land, especially out in the western part of the United States,” the Florida senator told Iowa radio station KBUR. “There are states, for example, like Nevada that are dominated by the federal government in terms of land holding, and we should fix it, but no one should be doing it in a way that’s outside the law.
Rand Paul wrote:I’m sympathetic to the idea that the large collection of federal lands ought to be turned back to the states and the people, but I think the best way to bring about change is through politics,” Paul told The Washington Post. “That’s why I entered the electoral arena. I don’t support any violence or suggestion of violence toward changing policy.
Ted Cruz wrote:Eight-five percent of Nevada is owned and regulated by the federal government,” Cruz says in a new TV ad, with tense, thriller-movie music playing in the background. “And Donald Trump wants to keep big government in charge. That is ridiculous. You, the people of Nevada, not Washington bureaucrats, should be in charge of your own land. If you trust me with your vote, I will fight day and night to return full control of Nevada’s lands to its rightful owners, its citizens. Count on it.” (Watch the ad below.)
Cruz’s appeal comes directly from Bundy’s playbook, which presents the U.S. government as the scourge of Western ranchers and a monolithic authority that has no right to the vast lands it controls. Bundy, a Nevada rancher whose sons Ammon and Ryan led the takeover early this year of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, is part of the Sovereign Movement. These militant activists, writes Forbes magazine, consider the U.S. government “an illegitimate sham.” In 2014, during an armed showdown with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights on federal land in Nevada, Bundy claimed to have had “a revelation from God that his supporters are to disarm the BLM and National Park Service, and to tear down the toll booth at Lake Mead.”
Donald Trump wrote:I think what I’d do, as president, is I would make a phone call to whoever, to the group,” he said, adding later, “I’d talk to the leader. I would talk to him and I would say, ‘You gotta get out — come see me, but you gotta get out.
And more specifically, his campaign:
[url]Trump's campain[/url] wrote:The head of veterans’ group founded by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign voiced hearty support for the armed militia currently occupying an Oregon wildfire refuge, a fight the billionaire Republican has said has gone on too long.
Jerry DeLemus, co-chair of Veterans for Trump in New Hampshire, said in a Tuesday interview with Reuters that Bundy and his allies have already seen “great success” in their fight against the “thug-like, terroristic” efforts of the federal government to wrest control of public lands from local ranchers.
DeLemus traveled to visit the occupation in Burns, Oregon earlier this month, and concluded the self-styled militia’s cause is “peaceful” and “constitutionally just.” According to Reuters, DeLemus also spent a month in 2014 at the Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy, who staged his own armed showdown with the federal government over public grazing lands.
Despite Trump’s earlier remarks that “you have to maintain law and order, no matter what” and “you cannot let people take over federal property,” DeLemus said he wants the GOP frontrunner to know “the whole story.”
“It’s my intention to ensure that he has the whole story,” he said. “I think it’ll really arouse him, and once he understands, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him heading out West.”
Among others.The Democrats were less vocal, but muzzled the state of Oregon from doing anything about being invaded by a milita from another state.
And it's not difficult to guess the reason why a bunch of politicians would line up behind their pay masters at the expense of the American people's property. Is it?
The Federal government, like any rancher or business, has a payroll to meet and has a vested interested in maintaining power structures as they exist. Why would it be in their interests to merely concede in this battle? Perhaps you can explain this to me.
You imagine that there is a difference, a tension between the Federal government and the people that created, fund, and run the Federal government. Most BLM land was only in the government's hands because nobody else wanted it at the time. For the most part, the Roosevelts and others ended up putting it to use--almost entirely as military and research, though also as Indian lands. Recreation became a a big part of it, and this was generally pushed by the senators from these areas (that run the feds) as it helped conjure up tourist dollars for local businesses.
But now that there are more people in the West, the big companies are just as happy to crush the local businesses, end the research, and grab what they can from the public (and the Indians).
We can go ahead and debate whether this is an okay thing or not, whether land that you collectively own with everyone else should be given to the richest guy in the room for free, but let's not pretend that this isn't what's happening.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!