Usa terrorists take over Federal building

Given he is a right wing nutbar who actually thinks he DOES have teh right to be where he is (spoiler: he doesn't) I think we can guess it won't be compliance

Agreed 100%

 

No one wants this to end in a shootout at all - they just want this groups actions to be treated by the media the same way as other protests are

 

The percentage of the media who referred to Black Lives Matters protesters as "terrorists" is actually miniscule (I'm not aware of anyone besides Glenn Beck who did that). Mainstream US media never did that. The proportion of media sources who are referring to these guys as terrorists is actually larger than with Black Lives Matters. And ironically, the people who are most vocal about wanting these guys labeled and treated as "terrorists" (such as the Huffington Post) are the ones most offended when that label was used for, say, the Occupy Ferguson movement after the gas station arson or the two officers were shot there. It can't go both ways.

For what it's worth, Ammon Bundy (the guy in Oregon) doesn't share his father's racist worldview and has expressed some solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement:

“I don’t know as much as I probably should about [Black Lives Matter],” Ammon Bundy told CNN’s Sara Sidner, in an interview that aired Monday morning. “I would imagine there is probably some similarities.”

 

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

Patriots....

 

I would take anything on US Uncut with a healthy grain of salt. Especially because no other news site, large or small, seems to have picked up on the existence of that alleged video.

In more serious matters, the Burns Paiute Tribe is now asserting a claim to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as well. The land is not part of the tribe's reservation but they are asserting it constitutes "ancestral lands." Before anyone either says "well it clearly belongs to them" or scoffs at their claim, Indian law (although using a term that's now outdated in everyday speech, that's the official term for the area of law dealing with sovereignty and property issues connected with tribes), like federal public lands law, is a very complex issue legally and practically in the American West. It would be nice if BOTH the Bundy group AND the folks saying "vanilla ISIS, y'all qaeda, LOL, all those ranchers are so entitled and want free handouts" would go home and let the adults sort this one out.

 

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5e7-7vWWW6Y[/ame]

I don't normally post YT links for facts, as they're normally very incorrect.

How does this seem to you?

 

Well, less than a minute in, he both misidentified the capital of Oregon (it's Salem, not Portland), and equated Portland culture with Oregon culture as a whole (common mistake that nobody who has been through Oregon makes). He then proceeds to make the same dumb Oregon = Oregon Trail = dysentary joke that everyone who has ever lived in Oregon is painfully tired of hearing. And then launches into stories about western diseases decimating Native Americans that, while true, have absolutely jack to do with who has what property rights over what land in 2015. He later the Paiute Tribe as currently being in southwestern Oregon (it's in southeastern Oregon).

Stating that we can accurately tell what tribe controlled what region 800 years ago lacks credibility. None of these tribes kept the sort of written history needed to accurately make such claims. And these tribes didn't just sit in one spot for eight centuries. Nobody does. Think about how the control and culture of any one geographical point in Europe has changed over the course of 800 years. Less than 800 years ago, Istanbul was called Constantinople and was the capital of the Empire of Nicaea!

Without going point-by-point through the rest of his video, half of it is egregious oversimplification, and the other half is simply irrelevant. For example, bad stuff happened to my ancestors in Russia in the 1890s, but that doesn't guarantee me property rights in Russia in 2015).

There is a complex system of laws and administrative procedures for tribes to adjudicate nowadays what rights they have to what lands, and who has the right to classify themselves as a member of what tribe (or a Native American at all) for claiming those respective rights. Saying "it's all Indian land and white people are all really bad, bad land-grabbers" really adds nothing to the debate.

If you're willing to watch a slightly lengthier video, this is not just some guy with a webcam and a YouTube channel. This is not some random rancher who hates the federal government. This is US Representative Greg Walden, the member of the US House of Representatives that represents this portion (and my portion) of the State of Oregon in Congress.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx4ocLdWE90"]Greg Walden addresses U.S. House on situation in Harney County, OR, federal overreach in the West - YouTube[/ame]

 

What about the main point be makes re federal land, the feds took it off the Native Americans, if bundy et al say the feds have no right to it, surely it should go back to the natives.

PS I'll watch it now, Greg w is Oregon's only republican us representative isn't he?

First minute in, he's friends with those found guilty , doesn't like the BLM, and has already made several statements about big government and Democrat presidents, this isnt a source of objective fact, its a subjective political game for him.

 

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/08/yes...werent_white_same_goes_if_they_were_leftists/

Interesting article! I can't really think of any right wing political groups that have faced violent repression, but would be interested in counter examples. Raids on compounds in Waco seem like a different sort of beast...

 

Wow, I didn't realise the father and son were charged under terrorism laws.

So technically they are terrorists!

 

"The big bad government is coming for your guns", says the NRA while wetting their fingers to count the bills rolling in.

 

No, the Hammonds are currently in prison and are not part of, or supportive of, the camp in the Malheur Refuge.

And their "terrorism" consisted of a small grass fire. As the trial judge said, sentencing them to five years in prison as "terrorists" for this incident was not just excessive, it shocked the conscience and in the trial judge's assessment violated the Eighth Amendment guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

 

I thought the line in the US was that if you support terrorists, then you are a terrorist?

Again, I don't think they really are, but it does highlight the problems with the government and media in the US using the term "terrorist" so lightly and selectively.

There is a level of irony inherent in a lot of the comment to do with this incident that you don't seem to be picking up on.

 

You've missed the entire point. Nobody is arguing that the property should be deeded to private citizens. People are arguing that the public lands should be administered and managed with more input from local populations and more sensitivity to local populations. The majority of the populace that supports the Hammonds are asking for better involvement in management of those public lands, and even the two dozen people in the Bundy camp are demanding transfer of management, not transfer of title. Huge difference.

And the "it should go back to the natives because, y'know, smallpox and trail of tears" argument is a tired soap-box argument that applies no more to this patch of land than downtown San Francisco or Manhattan. It's a tired rhetorical device for internet debates that ignores the entire body of modern Indian Law.

What entities are in control of managing public lands, and what input they take in from what groups as part of that management, IS a political issue; of course he's using political terminology. This is a two-decade-long political issue for everyone in this region. But it's not a political debate that people are having in theory because it's an election year. It's a political debate that has day-to-day ramifications on people's lives.

And Republicans versus Democrats is irrelevant here. The BLM's policies were not appreciably different under George W. Bush. The issue is less Republican versus Democrat and more sensitivity versus insensitivity to local concerns. In the past 10-20 years, the BLM switched from being sensitive to local concerns to being insensitive to local concerns. Before that point, it was sensitive to local concerns regardless of whether the president was Republican versus Democrat; after that it was insensitive regardless of whether the president was Republican or Democrat. For what it's worth, I historically vote Democrat 90% of the time (including voting for Obama both times, and against Dubya both times before that), but I support Walden. I think he's a great Congressman.

Kind of how "institutional racism" is a "subjective political game" when it's debated in a classroom, but when people in Ferguson talk about it, it's an actual mechanism that affects their day-to-day lives.

 

I get that you're trying to be funny and ironic. I just respond seriously because, while many people in America's cities and overseas treat this as a big game to make jokes about rednecks and hicks and American rural culture, it's a really serious, very important issue with very practical day-to-day consequences for people in the region I live in.

 

I'm sure there are serious political reasons behind some of this, but it is hard to take the guys in camo gear occupying the reserve building seriously.

They come across as doomsday preppers who have hijacked a local issue because they want to play soldiers and enact their "end of days" shoot-out with the evil tyrannical government.

 

I see absolutely no reason why it's harder to take a white guy in camo seriously than an African-American wearing a hoodie carrying a bag of Skittles seriously (common symbolic attire of people involved in Black Lives Matter). It's just clothing. Clothing doesn't make a political or cultural argument any stronger or weaker.

Most protesters in Ferguson weren't local either.

PS--most people in this region own camo. My kids have camo parkas that they wear in winter. What's wrong with camo? It's just another textile pattern, no better or worse than any other. In the US, there's a whole lot of classism/elitism to the argument (typically made by people in Seattle, San Francisco, and New York) that you can't take people in camo seriously. While wearing American Apparel skinny jeans and "artsy" glasses.

PPS--nobody who has ever walked around in a dobok or gi has any right to say "I can't take you seriously because of your clothing" to, well, just about anybody.

 

It's funny that you only responded to the camo comment. But seeing as that's obviously a sore point then sure, a camo jacket or trousers isn't a big deal. However, when you've got webbing, boonie, knee pads and such, it looks like a little kid playing soldiers.

I've never worn an oriental martial arts uniform

 

Mitlov, it sounds like you have some sympathy for their cause; could you lay it out here as best you understand it?

 

That's what my lengthy post at post #52 was. If you don't want to page back to page 4, here it is:

Spoiler

MAP's friendly local rural Oregonian here. There's a lot of misinformation going around about this incident because it's an election year in the USA, and because the media everywhere loves a crazy story. Here's a few important facts.

They have not injured anybody, killed anybody, held anybody captive, or attempted to.

The "federal building" they're occupying is quite literally a cabin in the woods.

They have said quite clearly that they don't want a shootout and would only use such force if such force was used on them. People are quoting those statements painfully out of context to suggest they want martyrdom.

Most rural Oregonians think the Bundy camp (which by more recent accounts probably is a couple dozen, not a couple hundred...that latter number probably included local Hammond supporters who peacefully protested in Burns but aren't on the Malheur refuge or affiliated with Bundy) are a pain in the butt and counterproductive. Because they're distracting from the real issue, which is federal abuse regarding land use in Harney and Malheur Counties, culminating in some absurd federal actions toward the Hammonds.

The Hammond are ranchers who set a fire they claim for agricultural purposes (this is common in Oregon), others claim to cover up the poaching of a couple dozen deer. The fire spread to empty federal land, where it burned 130 acres. This may sound like a lot to city-dwellers, but hundreds of thousands of acres burn in Oregon every year. The judge wanted a 90-day sentence. But the US Attorney's office, charging them under a TERRORISM statute, forced though a five-year sentence.

The federal government also used this situation to obtain a right of first refusal on the Hammond's land (even though the Hammonds already paid reparations), meaning that if the Hammonds have to sell their land because they can't ranch while in prison for five years for a minor brush fire, the land goes to the feds. Who already own the vast majority of the land in those countries and in all of Oregon:



The federal government, having cooperated with Oregon's ranching and timber industries for most of the 20th century, have really clamped down on these traditional uses of public lands in the last two decades. Resulting in a loss of 60% of Oregon's timber jobs, with catastrophic effects in counties like this, with ranchers now starting to feel the same squeeze.

The politicians who force through these regulations are largely on the east coast or in the western part of California, where coincidentally, there are no federally owned lands and no local economies built upon use of federal lands. The lands are all privately owned there. But the feds won't sell land to private buyers in rural western states like Oregon, Idaho, and Utah, creating a catch-22.

The Bundys are using the wrong tactic. It's stupid, shameful, and criminal trespass (but sure as heck isn't compatible to atrocities in Syria or to Timothy McVeigh or the Planned Parenthood terrorist...those comparisons are tiresome at best). But they haven't hurt anybody, and won't unless the feds force a gunfight upon them. They're illegally sitting in an isolated cabin in the woods in winter. Best to ignore them until they leave. But hopefully people will pay attention to the Hammonds and the question of federal government interactions with local populations in the rural West, instead of making a bunch of hick jokes and then going back to ignoring us like has happened for the past twenty years when rural westerners have tried to start a dialogue over this.