"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

The feds plan to freeze the Bundy militia out by cutting their power. The militia, which has occupied a federal building in an Oregon wildlife refuge since January 3, has said that it does not desire an armed confrontation with authorities, and it sounds like its wish will be granted. Rather than firing off tear gas canisters or kicking in doors and storming the building, authorities are instead planning to cut the Bundys’ electricity, then phone service, before shutting off roads to the refuge, according to The Guardian.

An unnamed federal official reportedly told The Guardian, “After [authorities] shut off the power, they’ll kill the phone service,” adding that “then they’ll block all the roads so that all those guys have a long, lonely winter to think about what they’ve done.”

In Harney County, Oregon, where the Bundy group is camped out, January temperatures hover around a 24 degree average, and winter typically brings plenty of snow. Nonetheless, the Bundys told The Guardian they are “ready and waiting” should their electricity be cut off.

xp ...A fire they allegedly set to cover up the illegal slaughter of a bunch of deer? Mmmm, stewardship.

hopefully more crazy militia people will join them and they can all sit in the middle of nowhere freezing for the rest of the winter.

The areas the Bundys/Hammonds have been embroiled in legal action over are the more verdant or, if you look at it another way, economically viable areas. A lot of the BLM areas are desolate, and in years with low rainfall, even some of the areas where they might graze cattle aren't useful for that purpose. Being able to lease rights for grazing in times when it's possible, and then just letting the federal government hold on to what is scrubland at the best of times is actually a pretty sweet deal!

In most of the country you can't even shoot at deer on your own property outside of a set season, and with the exception of some malcontents, that's mostly respected

I'm doubtful that even if they knew the subsidies given to their land-use and his everything else is paid for, they'd drop their protestations. It seems yet another situation where facts won't change shit, since we're into the realm of scared white dudes defending identity-based or tribal issues. Our brains have a habit of jumping to any other rationalization to undergird a tightly held belief.

BLM is directly responsible for a lot of damage too fwiw.

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2016/01/pinyon-juniper-forests-blms-false-claims-to-virtue/

kind of shocked the power was still on but i guess you don't want pipes freezing? these guys' only hope is a confrontation, and it's not going to happen. we should take bets on how long this lasts. i give it 10 days after the power goes out. 3 after the roads are blocked.

depends largely on if they have good internet on their phones

xp thought you were talking about black lives matter and clicked that link with the most confused look on my face

I think they imagine that, in lieu of a bloody confrontation and martyrdom, their epic heroism, continued over a period of months, will inspire an ever-growing movement of resistance to federal tyranny, sparking a revolution that renews and refreshes freedom and democracy nationwide. iow, they are just wanking, as was obvious from the start.

I have a friend who is an econ professor at a land grant state university in the rural western US and some portion of his workload involves outreach via each county's extension office.

Often this means that he meets with ranchers and farmers at town halls and such where they constantly vilify him and the federal government for their onerous taxes and regulations while utterly ignoring or being unable to comprehend that their entire existence is due to the largest water reclamation project in the country and the heavily subsidized irrigation that it provides. His predecessor was so pissed about having to do this sisyphean job for so long that after he retired he still goes to these meetings to yell back at these guys.

so are they still on the hook for going to jail for their fire? and if so, will that now have all this idiocy added to it? i hope they go away for a long time. they are a public danger.

yes, as far as I know they've already reported in for their jail time. the lower court didn't observe the mandatory minimum so they were in for two years, they're on the hook for the remainder of the time. that's all done and taken care of.

xp
the hammonds already reported back to federal prison a couple of days ago and are incarcerated. this wankery won't change that.

xxxp it still amazes me how people can be so blind to the basic facts that form the foundations of their lives.

who do you mean by "they"?

the Hammonds, father and son, reported to jail two days ago

http://abcnews.go.com/US/oregon-ranchers-expected-report-california-prison-amid-armed/story?id=36079385

the Bundy militia people are... different guys

xps ha

afaik, although there's no list of people, there are no Hammond family members (that were not supposed to be incarcerated) present according to reports. pretty sure that's been mentioned in the thread a few times.

these folks see their own day-to-day struggles and they listen to shitheads like Limbaugh who constantly teach them to resent the government and after a certain point, there is no room left in their heads for anything new. they're fully baked and from that point on they can only grow stale.

thanks goole.

yeah its the double standard that is so upsetting. weird there are two BLM's right now. one is protesting very real death and systemic abuse, the other making a violent stink about the right to ignore law and order.

I have a friend who is an econ professor at a land grant state university in the rural western US and some portion of his workload involves outreach via each county's extension office.

Often this means that he meets with ranchers and farmers at town halls and such where they constantly vilify him and the federal government for their onerous taxes and regulations while utterly ignoring or being unable to comprehend that their entire existence is due to the largest water reclamation project in the country and the heavily subsidized irrigation that it provides. His predecessor was so pissed about having to do this sisyphean job for so long that after he retired he still goes to these meetings to yell back at these guys.

― joygoat, Wednesday, January 6, 2016 12:49 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is... it's so bizarre. i think a big part of the problem is how the symbology and mythology of the west both enables the situation and is deeply contradictory / anathema to it. if you hold it close you're a deeply deluded fool who is going to be coddled enough to keep the illusion out there but mostly exploited in real terms. if you do see it and you still want to be a part of it you have to be cynical. there's a rot that happens as a result. imo the original sin is a genocide that has never been openly acknowledged / dealt with. i mean it's basically a colonial nightmare.

to me its scary these militia people are bringing this stuff across state lines. they want to create an interstate threat.

smh adam blm stands for bureau of land administration

adam can you take a nap and come back to this or something

Bureau of Land Management

this is old by a day or so but I love its ignorance

After Bundy defended his decision to lead a small militia to take over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, Kelly challenged him.

"You know the argument on the other side, which is, these ranchers — whom you support but are not directly involved — had their day in court. And they were found guilty, and it went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied their appeal. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work in our country when it comes to the rule of law?" she asked.

"Yeah, well let me ask you — and I’m sure you know the answer, but who was the plaintiff?" Bundy asked in response.

After a pause, Kelly told Bundy to "keep going."

And when Bundy asked the same question again, Kelly took another brief pause.

"I’m waiting for you to make your point. Generally I don’t answer the questions on my show; I ask them," she said.

"Oh, I mean, it was asked intending to be answered, but the plaintiff is the federal government," Bundy said in response, adding that there is no "proper redress" for the people in such situations.

NO REDRESS. except for multiple appeals all the way up to the fucking supreme court.

right thx i'm typing during a meeting and got distracted midway thru the acronym xp

One of the sustaining myths out here in the rural west is "I work damn hard, constantly, so all my success is due to my hard work." This is, of course, a very self-flattering myth and thus very appealing. After all, most ranchers do work damn hard.

The fact is that most homesteaders in the same areas worked much harder, lived on a much smaller real income, failed in spite of backbreaking toil, and had to move away because the land would not support them no matter how hard they worked. The successful homesteaders usually succeeded because they got onto the right parcel of land, bought out their failing neighbors for a song, and hung on by their fingernails until WWI brought a commodities boom. Even then, they barely survived until the federal government programs of the New Deal put the local economies on a more stable footing.

after he retired he still goes to these meetings to yell back at these guys.

I love this

local native tribe says "get the hell out"

Burns tribe says armed activists 'desecrating' Oregon land

<3

OK so these Hammond guys aren't so great either

(trigger warning: descriptions of child abuse)

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/01/04/3735722/meet-the-child-abusing-arsonists-at-the-center-of-the-oregon-militia-standoff/

"I work damn hard, constantly, so all my success is due to my hard work."

one of the sustaining myths of capitalism even

Yup

Colin Meloy of the Decembrists has been tweeting erotic fan fiction about the Malheur standoff.

@colinmeloy
"Jason pressed Jed against a rack of "Birds of Oregon" books; his breath was sweet with jerky. Somewhere, an egret cried" ‪#‎bundyeroticfanfic‬

Apologies if this has already been linked, but this is a good 'splainer: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/upshot/why-the-government-owns-so-much-land-in-the-west.html.

Among other things, it notes that the ranchers couldn't afford to buy the land, and it would cost states too much to administer it, so it would be tricky for the feds to dispose of even if they wanted to.

that's a very strange notion, since, you know, the government itself is setting the price for the land. either it isn't priced to market or it's implied that other parties (but not the ranchers) would be able to buy the land.

When Astroturf Patsies Go Rogue lol

If the federal government were to divest itself of federal lands directly to private ownership, they would sell it in such enormous parcels that only banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, or pension funds could afford to bid on them. These owners would, in their turn, go about maximizing their profits on those lands as they saw fit. Handing them over to ranchers at bargain prices seems like the most unlikely outcome of all. More likely the new owners would just put up no trespassing signs and sit on their investment, if it didn't yield an immediate 30% profit.

That's why the Bundy types want the lands turned over to the local counties. Lots of these counties are very sparsely populated, so it would be relatively easy to capture county government with just a small amount of horse-trading, back-scratching, and a healthy dose of voter intimidation whenever needed. Just the way the KKK worked in the Jim Crow south.

Is this a really dull story? Feels like one.

you're bored of it, congratulations

http://usuncut.com/news/oregon-standoff-member-caught-drinking-donation-money/

xpost, well I'll keep checking in case someone posts a link to an article summarizing the situation! Can't wait.

That summary could be pretty long, since there are a lot of facets to the story.

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/3/10703712/oregon-militia-standoff

so good http://gawker.com/we-sent-the-oregon-militia-idiots-a-care-package-1751223009

That Vox summary had the look and feel of something tossed together in about an hour. Its facts were factual enough, but woefully insufficient to arrive at any understanding of the situation at all. It didn't even connect the few facts it contained in a particularly coherent sequence.

yup

Who is Vox Media writing for?

Oh. An ironic link, then?

nah I think the link was in good faith but I agree w/your critique

I found that thread pretty interesting in and of itself, they only got on my radar recently

Vox thread, that is

xxp thx Aimless, useful explanation