The Bundy Militia are trying so hard to present themselves as defenders of the country’s heritage.
In a new video posted to the Bundy Ranch’s Facebook account, several ranchers search boxes of artifacts that belong to the Paiute tribe. As members of the group sift through documents and objects, holding them up to the camera, LaVoy Finicum talks about how poorly the artifacts have been stored and proposes a dialogue with local Paiute.
“We want to make sure these things are returned to their rightful owners and that they’re taken care of,” he says, noting rat droppings in some of the boxes. “This is how Native Americans’ heritage is being treated. To me, I don’t think it’s acceptable,” Finicum concludes.
It’s not acceptable, huh?
What about this then?
The armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge continue to use government equipment inside the complex.
One militant, who refused to give his name, again plowed dirt with a refuge bulldozer Wednesday. He wouldn’t say why he was operating the machinery, but in several places, sagebrush and vegetation had been newly removed, leaving wide patches of bare mud within the complex.
Taking a bulldozer to it is apparently their way of ‘respecting’ the land.
I don’t think their claim of want to protect native American heritage is credible, either. Ask the Paiute.
Bundy supporters have damaged Native American archaeological sites before, most notably, when they drove ATVs through a canyon trail in Utah in protest of protected federal lands trampling the ruins of homes belonging to the ancient Puebloans. Also, the Southern Paiute tribes in Nevada have accused the Bundy family of defacing ancient Paiute petroglyphs in Gold Butte. Incidentally, Southern Paiute community members held a rally last week in Las Vegas in support of the Burns Paiute tribe.
“I understand they took a bulldozer and built a line around the refuge headquarters,” Roderique said. She notes that in the past when a water line was put in at the refuge the tribe’s cultural resources department oversaw the work done to make sure no artifacts or sites were disturbed. “We have a good working relationship with them. That is, the relationship has evolved for the better.”
They also claim to be there to support the Hammonds…a couple of jerks who abused the refuge, shot coyotes from the air, and made death threats to refuge employees.
These people are wreckers. When is the government going to step in and arrest these people and put them in prison, where they belong?
Gov. Kate Brown, Oregon, spoke about the Fed’s hesitancy to deal with these thugs. She’s ready to see something done. Oh, and it’s cost the state a half million dollars.
I’m still trying to comprehend why power to the site hasn’t been cut and why every one of those idiots who waltzes into town isn’t slapped in irons.
Our ongoing lesson in how much of USA law enforcement at state, local, and federal levels tacitly supports conservative white terrorists.
Bundy’s sedition-ists must be getting desperate if they’re trying to garner sympathies from brown people, or the plight of brown people. Which, I suppose, makes sense. The militia movement itself is being highlighted for how fringe, isolated, and just plain whitey-rich-white-mooch it is. Made up of misfits, violent losers, convicted murderers, child abusers and failed ‘entrepreneurs’ who’ve since turned to the government for handouts in order to fuel their pathological gun addictions. And even if most of them aren’t like that, the ‘regular’ ones are still subject to the poop-covered-man principle of social dynamics that states no matter how clean you personally think you are, if you’re in a group in which just one man covers himself in poop on a regular basis, people are going to think you have poop on you, too. And they’re probably right.
And this entire scene (because I won’t even dignify it with “movement” in irony-quotes) is just STEEPED in bullshit.
Brown should be pushing a bill through the legislature to make the Bundy terrorists (and any other like minded doofusses) monetarily responsible for all costs incurred by the state of Oregon during their occupations.
Cutting the power turns out to be non-trivial: It would also cut power to several local ranches.
Slapping in irons: My suspicion is the authorities are trying to build tight (“iron-clad”) cases. Of the two who have been arrested to-date, one was in possession of a stolen vehicle, and the other was a convicted felon banishing guns.
Seems like the Weimar Republic all over again — Germany in the 1920’s. Their courts were much stronger on right-wing revolutionaries than left-wing ones. Right-wing ones like Adolf Hitler, who got off remarkably easy for his Munich Beer Hall Putsch. When he was put on trial, the judges let him rant at length as to why he did it, and he only got a year or so in prison. Time that he put to work in composing his big statement, “Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice”. His publisher shortened it to “My Struggle”, or in the original German, “Mein Kampf”.
Nerd@5: that would be a bill of attainder, which is unconstitutional. Instead, the state could potentially sue the bundy bunch for damages under existing law.
My personal theory as to why the feds haven’t moved in is that they’re too busy laughing at these jackasses. They’re comedy GOLD, man! Not the part where they’re destroying artifacts ‘n stuff, obviously, but the whole situation is just so damn ridiculous!
Ironically one group does have a strong claim to that land. Malheur National Wildlife Refuge used to be part of a Paiute Reservation. After losing several battles, they were put on a large reservation.
Then the whites decided the land might be worth something and pushed them off it. They were supposed to just disappear in what was genocide.
Instead they hung on, eventually bought a few acres of land and petitioned to be federally recognized. Which has happened.
As many have said, We admire the Indians for being able to survive in whatever Cthulhu forsaken place we move them.
I don’t know what good this petition will do, but it rankles me that the petition next to it, to commute the sentence of the Hammond’s, has more signatures. It needs Pharyngulation.
To Nerd
One – that would be illegal. US Constitution says no “ex post facto” laws and no “bills of attainder”, and there’s probably a good argument to be made that the 14th applies those protections against state laws too. (Note: It’s unclear whether your proposed law was a bill of attainder, but it definitely seems like a ex post facto law.)
Second – they’re already liable, civilly. I doubt they need any new law for civil liability for damages.
…
To numerobis
Thanks for reminding me about the “bills of attainder”, although I’m not sure if the law that Nerd suggested is a bill of attainder. Regardless, it seems very much to be a ex post facto law, which is also banned by the US constitution.
Bullshit.
All it has to do is specify “from the date this legislation is entered” or some such and by definition it won’t be “ex post facto.”
It’s because the militants want a confrontation.
If you commit a crime while desiring to be confronted by law enforcement, you’re exempt from arrest and physical response from police. I’m not sure how this would play out if these were Middle Eastern men holed up in a federal building, but for white terrorists, that’s the law in the U.S.
They are white, conservative, Christian cis-gendered, straight men.
So does Isis. So do half the dumb young men who break windows in places like Missouri. That somehow doesn’t stop them from being shot at, arrested, and otherwise confronted. The terrorists in Oregon aren’t even being prevented from picking up their mail. Their worst suffering is having to deal with getting dildos as presents when what they really wanted was snacks.
(Oh, sorry, saad. Read the first line in your post and jumped to conclusions.)
“When is the government going to step in and arrest these people and put them in prison, where they belong?”
I’m guessing that would never. They’re white, you know.
*be* never That’s what I get for not proofreading.
dianne, #17
No problem.
Of all the shit going on in the world right now, this boggles my mind and pisses me off the most… how is “that’s what they WANT us to do” being accepted as a valid reason by so many?
Even when there are innocent hostages, the government takes a more active role.
They’re destroying irreplacable artifacts and endangering animals. Including humans. The reverse psychology isn’t working. Time to stop treating them like two year olds having a tantrum and start treating them like the terrorists that they are. Though I would still prefer actually isolating them–no leaving, no one else coming in, no going out to bulldoze their way through the refuge, no electricity, no gas, no water–and letting them surrender when they get uncomfortable to going in guns blazing. I don’t approve of shooting white right wing terrorists just because they’re white, right wing terrorists if there are alternatives. Of course, if they can’t be isolated that way and continue to present a danger to the public and innocent animals, well, there’s not much of a choice, is there? Well, except letting them run amok, which seems to be the current plan.
I hope the feds are at least busy identifying these people and getting a clear picture of all their assets, so that everything they own can be immediately seized once they’re arrested.
It appears my #5 is not being interpreted as I meant. No, the legislature should not determine guilt. However, it should have in place laws that allow it to recoup the large costs for such insurrections. It is similar to LykeX#22, and allows for both the state and feds to make these terrorists responsible for the results of their actions.
“These people” also complained about the government restricting “mechanized recreation” on public land. That means dirt bikes, ATV’s, big wheel trucks and stuff like that. I’ve seen what “these people” and their mechanized recreation do to land in Arizona and it’s not pretty, and the damage is very long-lasting. But, hey, it’s all in good fun, right?
Bundy has buddies, or at least like-minded legislators, in many western states, including Utah. Some U.S. Congress critters from Utah have introduced bills in the House that are based on Bundy-like ideology.
This is a cross post from the Moments of Political Madness thread.
The Ammon Bundy’s of the House of Representatives got together and wrote a bill that will reduce protection for wilderness areas, and for proposed wilderness areas in Utah. (Proposed wilderness areas are currently managed to protect wilderness values so that wilderness designation could take place in the future.)
In addition to reducing federal control over public lands, the legislators also want to allow more oil and gas drilling; and they want to give large tracts of land to the state of Utah, or to private investors. This is all reminiscent of Bundy and his push to let ranchers, loggers, and extractive industries make use of public land.
Sounds like these Republican legislators want to create pseudo “wilderness areas” just to slip this bad proposal past the public. They cannot be allowed to redefine “wilderness” to mean “not wilderness at all.”
Think Progress link
Why? This is just barmy.
Probably to keep a clear fire zone so they can see the FBI coming. And keep FBI agents from hiding behind sage brush and sneaking up on them.
The real reason is because they are idiots. Playing with a bulldozer and tearing up stuff is what some people think of as fun outdoor recreation.
@Azkyroth and Nerd
Sorry. Guess I interpreted badly.
More racist stuff from Ryan Bundy