I haven't really been following the tangled disintegration of the Oregon Standoff, quote unquote, but it sounds like there might have been something of a resolution -- following an extended period of sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll. Or something.
They say even the Old Man (Bundy) was rounded up as he de-planed in Portland.
My my.
And only one killed -- so far. Poor deluded LeVoy got his (apparent) wish and was shot down in the snow by state police as twirled and ranted after a botched attempt to flee a roadblock.
Well, I saw the same video everyone else did of his execution, and there appeared to me to be no necessity to shoot him at all, any more than there is a necessity for LEOs to kill this or that suspect, individual, person in the vast majority of cases. They do it because they can, and they can get away with it in almost all cases. Further, as in the case of the poor, deluded elder Finicum, they do it pour encourager les autres. To make a statement: "Fuck with us and you die."
Finicum fucked with the law and authorities a lot, he did. So he, of all those deluded individuals, had to die. I'm sure he was targeted probably very early on. An example had to be made. And it was in spectacular though tragic fashion.
Immediately afterwards, I saw a lot of cheering commentary regarding his killing, as if this time -- of all the thousands of police killings over the last few years -- the dude really needed killing, and hurrah! for the Feds.
No. He's liable to become a martyr, that one. All because he "stood up" to the tyranny of gubment. And they -- the vast, implacable They -- shot him down for it.
That's what makes martyrs, just as has happened over and over again throughout history, triggering one revolution after another.
I make mock of Bernie's pretense to "revolution" -- a "political revolution" as he calls it -- because that's what it is, a pretense of revolution, not the thing itself. I believe it is a deliberate move to stave off the real thing from the left, pressure for which has been mounting for some time. But what about from the right?
A neo-revolution (neo-colonial, neo-conservative, neo-liberal) actually has taken place, suddenly in the aftermath of the unsettled 2000 presidential election, and then slowly consolidating ever since. Because it's not actually a rightist revolution -- though it has many aspects of rightist action and rhetoric -- many actual rightists are unsatisfied. They want more.
They see power in the wrong hands. They want for themselves. Which is what the Bundy Bunch have been after for years.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of "patriot-rebels" (they say there may be three hundred thousand of these mooks or more) are arming and prepping themselves into a frenzy of rebellion, indeed potentially of revolution, the real thing.
So is it really over? No, not by a long shot as they say.
We're going to see more and more of this as the neo-crowd continues its consolidation of wealth and power. And those who would fight that consolidation of power become more and more radicalized.
Showing posts with label Bundy-Bunch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bundy-Bunch. Show all posts
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Thursday, January 28, 2016
It's Not Over Till It's Over
As the Bundy Bunch dwindles in Oregon (are there any still at the Wildlife Refuge? I haven't checked this morning....) their "cause" continues.
It would be bizarre if it weren't so commonplace.
Everyone has the right to their own interpretation of the Constitution, I suppose, but we don't have the authority to act on our special belief regarding what the Constitution says and means. The Bundy Bunch has been acting out a fantasy of their political and religious beliefs, and they have been claiming authority they don't have to force government to abide by their claims. The Bundy Bunch would engage in armed insurrection if government did not meet their demands, demands which they insisted were Constitutionally based.
The problem is fundamental. Individuals have no authority to assert the Constitution -- or the Bible or the Book of Mormon -- in opposition to the government and to compel the government to abide by their assertions.
Apparently the Bundy Bunch never got that message, or if they did, they never understood it.
I listened to their arguments about Federal ownership of land, and they were just silly. And yet they repeated a passage from the Constitution over and over again, regardless. This matter has been adjudicated and legislated quite thoroughly, and they have not a legal or Constitutional leg to stand on. There is no question whatsoever that the Federal government can own and control land outside the District of Columbia. There is no legal requirement that such land must be turned over to the states for disposition. It's absurd to claim otherwise.
These people believe in this absurdity in part because their God tells them to. Yes, it is tied in with their Mormon beliefs -- beliefs which have frequently been in direct conflict with the government of the states and the United States, and occasionally, this conflict has led to bloodshed. Some Mormons continue to insist on their authority over (secular) government. They are theocrats, as are many other religious believers in this country and around the world.
I wouldn't call them terrorists. That's going too far. They use some terrorist tactics, but they haven't actually engaged in violent actions -- not yet anyway. Their threats have so far proved hollow. But then, this appears to be a long-term project. They're not done yet.
Part of the problem is the Constitution itself. Because it seems to authorize its own overthrow. This apparent authorization was a big part of the rationale for the unpleasantness between 1861 and 1865.
The resolution to that conflict actually didn't resolve all that much, though. The conflict continued, and many thousands died, lynched and otherwise murdered in the ongoing pursuit of power.
What the Bundy Bunch did can become a trigger for armed revolt/revolution, and we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing otherwise. As I've long said, if there is another armed revolution in this country, it will come from the Right, and an attempt at that rightist (and religious) revolution has just been made in Oregon. It won't be the last one.
Nope. This sort of thing will keep happening.
It ain't over till
It would be bizarre if it weren't so commonplace.
Everyone has the right to their own interpretation of the Constitution, I suppose, but we don't have the authority to act on our special belief regarding what the Constitution says and means. The Bundy Bunch has been acting out a fantasy of their political and religious beliefs, and they have been claiming authority they don't have to force government to abide by their claims. The Bundy Bunch would engage in armed insurrection if government did not meet their demands, demands which they insisted were Constitutionally based.
The problem is fundamental. Individuals have no authority to assert the Constitution -- or the Bible or the Book of Mormon -- in opposition to the government and to compel the government to abide by their assertions.
Apparently the Bundy Bunch never got that message, or if they did, they never understood it.
I listened to their arguments about Federal ownership of land, and they were just silly. And yet they repeated a passage from the Constitution over and over again, regardless. This matter has been adjudicated and legislated quite thoroughly, and they have not a legal or Constitutional leg to stand on. There is no question whatsoever that the Federal government can own and control land outside the District of Columbia. There is no legal requirement that such land must be turned over to the states for disposition. It's absurd to claim otherwise.
These people believe in this absurdity in part because their God tells them to. Yes, it is tied in with their Mormon beliefs -- beliefs which have frequently been in direct conflict with the government of the states and the United States, and occasionally, this conflict has led to bloodshed. Some Mormons continue to insist on their authority over (secular) government. They are theocrats, as are many other religious believers in this country and around the world.
I wouldn't call them terrorists. That's going too far. They use some terrorist tactics, but they haven't actually engaged in violent actions -- not yet anyway. Their threats have so far proved hollow. But then, this appears to be a long-term project. They're not done yet.
Part of the problem is the Constitution itself. Because it seems to authorize its own overthrow. This apparent authorization was a big part of the rationale for the unpleasantness between 1861 and 1865.
The resolution to that conflict actually didn't resolve all that much, though. The conflict continued, and many thousands died, lynched and otherwise murdered in the ongoing pursuit of power.
What the Bundy Bunch did can become a trigger for armed revolt/revolution, and we shouldn't fool ourselves into believing otherwise. As I've long said, if there is another armed revolution in this country, it will come from the Right, and an attempt at that rightist (and religious) revolution has just been made in Oregon. It won't be the last one.
Nope. This sort of thing will keep happening.
It ain't over till
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
The Bundy Bunch Thing Continues Its Dreary Way...
What these entitled rich white fools are up to is anybody's guess, but they're certainly getting away with it. Wow.
There are elements and echoes of the Occupy movement in their tactics, and I'm sure the Bundy Bunch learned plenty from the failure of Occupy to hold territory they had seized. The lesson the Bundy Bunch learned -- we all did -- was that unarmed protesters cannot ultimately claim territory or hold positions against the state, whereas armed insurgents (sometimes) can.
The Bundy Bunch are being allowed to get away with an insurrection that borders on domestic terrorism, and they've been allowed to get away with it before. They have a lot of sympathy in the media. Much more than Occupy ever did, but then these privileged white fools are much more like the men and women of the media than the anarchists and rebellious youth of the Occupy movement.
The New York Times had an article the other day about the rural poverty that afflicts the West, Harney County in particular, and stated this poverty is the backdrop and implied it is somehow the reason for the Bundy Bunch's seizure of the wildlife refuge.
Utter nonsense.
The insurgents are not poor. Most are very well off, and some like the Bundys are objectively wealthy. Their prosperity and/or wealth is partly the result of federal subsidies for their ranching operations. They have little or no concern for the rural poor who are suffering economic hardship. It's simply not how things are done in the West. The Bundy Bunch is not in Harney County to ameliorate the economic condition of the struggling masses. To suggest that the standoff at Malheur has anything to do with that is deeply dishonest and bizarre.
But it seems to be where the media is headed as they try to "make sense of" the situation.
No.
There is most definitely rural poverty in the West. Ms Ché and I live in a rural county in New Mexico with a high poverty rate. But in addition there are also rich ranchers and farm operators in the county, running cattle and growing crops, making money, often with the assistance of federal and state subsidies. Los Ricos do not much fret over the poor. Most don't give a good gott-damn about "rural poverty." And the other side of that is that most of the rural poor in this area make do as best they can, helped out by relatives, neighbors, and one another and a tenaciousness that is quite remarkable given the harshness of so much of the reality here.
There is also a tendency to skirt -- or flout -- the law.
The idea that the poor of this or any other rural county of the West would be better off if the federal government did not control so much land is nonsense, something the people of Harney County seem to understand quite well. They want the Bundy Bunch gone.
The media has a hard time with that concept, however, thinking the Bundy Bunch are romantic heroes of some Western novelist's dream.
It's sad.
But here we are. The government continues to allow the rich white fools at Malheur to get away with it. The rest of us have to put up with it for the duration.
There are elements and echoes of the Occupy movement in their tactics, and I'm sure the Bundy Bunch learned plenty from the failure of Occupy to hold territory they had seized. The lesson the Bundy Bunch learned -- we all did -- was that unarmed protesters cannot ultimately claim territory or hold positions against the state, whereas armed insurgents (sometimes) can.
The Bundy Bunch are being allowed to get away with an insurrection that borders on domestic terrorism, and they've been allowed to get away with it before. They have a lot of sympathy in the media. Much more than Occupy ever did, but then these privileged white fools are much more like the men and women of the media than the anarchists and rebellious youth of the Occupy movement.
The New York Times had an article the other day about the rural poverty that afflicts the West, Harney County in particular, and stated this poverty is the backdrop and implied it is somehow the reason for the Bundy Bunch's seizure of the wildlife refuge.
Utter nonsense.
The insurgents are not poor. Most are very well off, and some like the Bundys are objectively wealthy. Their prosperity and/or wealth is partly the result of federal subsidies for their ranching operations. They have little or no concern for the rural poor who are suffering economic hardship. It's simply not how things are done in the West. The Bundy Bunch is not in Harney County to ameliorate the economic condition of the struggling masses. To suggest that the standoff at Malheur has anything to do with that is deeply dishonest and bizarre.
But it seems to be where the media is headed as they try to "make sense of" the situation.
No.
There is most definitely rural poverty in the West. Ms Ché and I live in a rural county in New Mexico with a high poverty rate. But in addition there are also rich ranchers and farm operators in the county, running cattle and growing crops, making money, often with the assistance of federal and state subsidies. Los Ricos do not much fret over the poor. Most don't give a good gott-damn about "rural poverty." And the other side of that is that most of the rural poor in this area make do as best they can, helped out by relatives, neighbors, and one another and a tenaciousness that is quite remarkable given the harshness of so much of the reality here.
There is also a tendency to skirt -- or flout -- the law.
The idea that the poor of this or any other rural county of the West would be better off if the federal government did not control so much land is nonsense, something the people of Harney County seem to understand quite well. They want the Bundy Bunch gone.
The media has a hard time with that concept, however, thinking the Bundy Bunch are romantic heroes of some Western novelist's dream.
It's sad.
But here we are. The government continues to allow the rich white fools at Malheur to get away with it. The rest of us have to put up with it for the duration.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
The Oregon Standoff... Thing.
Good god in heaven, must we descend to this again?
Apparently so.
Some armed white male yahoos have taken over a wildlife refuge in Oregon and declared it "liberated" from Federal control -- which they claim is their right and duty as "patriots" and so on, because they do. The Federales are approaching this situation with considerable restraint, treating with the white male yahoos as if they were merely mediating a dispute between factions of governance. t
Yes, well...
The yahoos are being led by the Bundy-Bunch who engaged in an armed standoff in Nevada last year over grazing fees and rights, fees that millionaire rancher Cliven Bundy refused to pay for year upon year because he could. And because, according to these millionaires, the Feds have no right to tell them anything or to collect fees and rents. The Feds have unconstitutionally usurped private property and local control. The Bundy-Bunch will get it back or know the reason why.
This is really quite silly, but here we are. Again. As in so many things, part of the problem is the Constitution itself which is so flawed and has become so anachronistic -- and has been interpreted in so many inconsistent ways -- that governance itself is devolving into chaos.
The Bundy-Bunch believe they have a right to interpret constitutional provisions to suit themselves and to enforce their will by force of arms if need be or they choose to, and the Federal government has no authority over them. Period. End of discussion.
Thus their take over and armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge, which itself is on land seized from the Paiutes in the 1870s, which was apparently initially given to white settlers and then taken away -- by the Federal government which did the seizure from the Paiutes by force of arms to begin with.
The Paiutes rightly say, "This is OUR land, not yours, and not the Government's except to the extent we allow it (or cannot fight it)."
Meanwhile the Bundy-Bunch insists that all Federal land in the West must be privatized, and they no doubt believe that they should own most of it as spoils of war or something.
"Constitutional Crisis" indeed, or it would be if it weren't for the fact that a bunch of rich white yahoos are demanding that they be given more and more and ever more by the Federal government, or they'll commit revolution, just you watch.
So far, truth is, they've gotten away with it. When rich white men say they want a thing in this country, they usually get it. It's been that way since well before there was a United States of America (Inc) and there's no sign of change.
Observers look on in astonishment the government literally bends and yields to their demands in contrast to the suppression that's taken place over and over again when people of color or non-rich white people make demands or demonstrate against some aspect of government policy that is harming them.
The official violence unleashed against Occupy, Black Lives Matter and so many other people's movements is in stark contrast to the mediation and negotiation that appears to be the official policy in treating with the yahoos occupying a wildlife refuge in Oregon. The message is obvious:
Apparently so.
Some armed white male yahoos have taken over a wildlife refuge in Oregon and declared it "liberated" from Federal control -- which they claim is their right and duty as "patriots" and so on, because they do. The Federales are approaching this situation with considerable restraint, treating with the white male yahoos as if they were merely mediating a dispute between factions of governance. t
Yes, well...
The yahoos are being led by the Bundy-Bunch who engaged in an armed standoff in Nevada last year over grazing fees and rights, fees that millionaire rancher Cliven Bundy refused to pay for year upon year because he could. And because, according to these millionaires, the Feds have no right to tell them anything or to collect fees and rents. The Feds have unconstitutionally usurped private property and local control. The Bundy-Bunch will get it back or know the reason why.
This is really quite silly, but here we are. Again. As in so many things, part of the problem is the Constitution itself which is so flawed and has become so anachronistic -- and has been interpreted in so many inconsistent ways -- that governance itself is devolving into chaos.
The Bundy-Bunch believe they have a right to interpret constitutional provisions to suit themselves and to enforce their will by force of arms if need be or they choose to, and the Federal government has no authority over them. Period. End of discussion.
Thus their take over and armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge, which itself is on land seized from the Paiutes in the 1870s, which was apparently initially given to white settlers and then taken away -- by the Federal government which did the seizure from the Paiutes by force of arms to begin with.
The Paiutes rightly say, "This is OUR land, not yours, and not the Government's except to the extent we allow it (or cannot fight it)."
Meanwhile the Bundy-Bunch insists that all Federal land in the West must be privatized, and they no doubt believe that they should own most of it as spoils of war or something.
"Constitutional Crisis" indeed, or it would be if it weren't for the fact that a bunch of rich white yahoos are demanding that they be given more and more and ever more by the Federal government, or they'll commit revolution, just you watch.
So far, truth is, they've gotten away with it. When rich white men say they want a thing in this country, they usually get it. It's been that way since well before there was a United States of America (Inc) and there's no sign of change.
Observers look on in astonishment the government literally bends and yields to their demands in contrast to the suppression that's taken place over and over again when people of color or non-rich white people make demands or demonstrate against some aspect of government policy that is harming them.
The official violence unleashed against Occupy, Black Lives Matter and so many other people's movements is in stark contrast to the mediation and negotiation that appears to be the official policy in treating with the yahoos occupying a wildlife refuge in Oregon. The message is obvious:
These armed white and mostly rich insurrectionists have power. You on the other hand do not.There are many lessons to be learned, aren't there?
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