UPDATE: See today’s update:
April 19, 2014 – A Former Leftist Radical’s View:
I come at this from a different perspective; as a radical leftist I marched on the Pentagon during the Viet Nam war. There, along with others, I encountered what were identified as U.S. Marshalls; I don’t know if that was totally correct – but they were allowed with the troops … I thought to arrest us. I was wrong; like the Para-military group of BLM at the Cliven Bundy Ranch they were there to provoke a response and (once the media was gone) ‘take it out on the protestors’.
I sincerely thought that I was non-violent.
Late into the night, I’d climbed up onto the Mall of the Pentagon. We’d been pushed into a small group, but people were still allowed to come or leave, up and down a rope. Thinking I was ready, I sat down with the other protestors.
“Thought” was the operative word. I watched as these “U.S. Marshalls” tapped an M.P. on the shoulder with their baton … he’d go to a “Parade Rest” position and the Marshalls reached through and grabbed a young girl by the hair and pulled her through their line and beat her … They beat the flesh off her face – her face instead, was a mass of hanging flesh, blood and bone!
The radicals held me down; they told me I wasn’t ready. They forced me to leave that night, but my contempt and trust died there that night … on the Pentagon mall.
I know the kind of men who hold power in D.C. I know the kind of violence they’re capable of and though I’ve worked through my country’s short-comings and failures, I’ve become a conservative. That said, never think I don’t want change – I just know what kind of change I don’t want!
Harry Reid and his vigilante group of BLM THUGS are not the change I want!
Will Bundy’s ranch become a Boston Harbor? Will our D.C. representatives garner their balls and force disclosure of the facts of the IRS, Benghazi, spying, etc., so we can rid ourselves of these slime-balls?
Or, … is America just a fond memory?
As the nation began to become familiar with the plight of the family of Cliven Bundy, many of us harkened back to another standoff in which the Federal government attempted to bully it’s outcome: Waco, Texas and the Branch Davidian massacre.
It is telling that in the Nevada case the feds pulled out so quickly, given all they had indicated they were willing to do to resolve the matter to their satisfaction. They had set up a perimeter around the Bundy’s family land, ranch, and home. They had brought in extra artillery, dogs, and snipers. They were beginning the process of stealing more than 300 head of cattle that did not belong to them.
They did so–or so we were told–for the reason of protecting the desert tortoise. But then it was revealed that the Bureau of Land Management had shot far more desert tortoises than the Bundy cattle had even possibly destroyed. We were told they did it because the Bundys had broken federal laws by not paying what amounted to retroactive grazing fees to the federal government. But the Governor of the state of Nevada told us that Bundy had paid every ounce of state tax, met the state requirements, and their family had been improving the property more than 100 years previous.
Finally we were allowed to know the connection between a communist Chinese wind/solar power plant and its connection to that senator named Harry Reid. Evidently a plan had been hatched to use the Bundy property for a solar farm and instead of paying the Bundys, someone, somewhere in the administration believed it was easier to just take what they wanted.
That approach is at least consistent with the readily documented abuse of eminent domain where the government for any number of reasons–few of them valid–have taken to taking what doesn’t belong to them. Americans then watch as it gets handed over to some multi-national corporation for the “cause” of the “greater good.”
There were a few specific reasons why the feds chickened out in the Nevada desert though.
1. Technology – As the Bundy family members were abused, cameras captured it. Not television network cameras, but dozens of cell phone video devices that gave witness to a Bundy aunt being shoved to the ground, and a Bundy son being tazed. All of this while threatening protestors with dogs, brandished weapons and vehicles was captured, uploaded and made viral to the watching world.
2. States’ Rights – As the drama unfolded it became clear that the Governor of Nevada, and the Sheriff of Clark County knew that Cliven Bundy’s family had not only not broken any state law regarding the land, but that they had gone to the enth degree to insure compliance with Nevada laws on the property. The Governor and the Sheriff, to their credit, did not favor the feds as a more powerful party in the conflict. Though there must have been pressure from Senator Reid’s office, the administration via the Bureau of Land Management, and local officials who were bought and sold like the Clark County Commissioner who told those coming to support the Bundys to have “funeral plans in place.”
3. Grassroots Response – As other incidents have transpired in the past, the amount of time it took honest information to reach the grassroots and thus the response to the action came to slow. In the massacre in Waco, most of the nation had been sold a single narrative from the limited media outlets covering the events. Similarly the events surrounding the abduction of Elian Gonzales from his family in Florida and deportation to Cuba took place in such a response vacuum that by the time Americans knew the real story, the damage was done. With the Bundy ranch, internet outlets by the dozen had competing information with the limited “official news” being released by the networks, and in most cases the alternative sources had it correct and usually a full day or so ahead of the news cycle. By the time afternoon drive hit, when the network news rooms in New York were preparing their first stories, talk radio audiences had already been dialing their elected officials in Washington demanding action.
The majority of Americans saw through the efforts to spin the story in Nevada. Couple that with the leadership failures that the American people view the administration responsible for, from Benghazi to the Affordable Care Act, all it took was the unedited video of federal agents tazing Bundy’s son, followed by his pulling the wires from his chest and continuing to stand his ground for there to be comparisons made to the American revolution.
It’s also important to note that merely pulling back from the Bundy property hasn’t settled the matter for the American people either.
The feds have stolen 352 head of cattle, and will not confirm or deny if they euthanized some or all of them. Recompense must be made. And to be candid, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see if a few ambitious law firms don’t try to convince the Bundy family of the validity of litigation.
Fortunately for the American people, the feds were not able to ultimately bully a simple rancher, not for a tortoise, a solar power plant, or a dirty Senator and his administration.
We owe the Bundy family a great deal of thanks for standing tall.
For if the federal government is allowed to do it with one, then there will be nothing stopping them from doing it again.
In that the mainstream-media, though finally being forced to cover the near-revolution in Nevada, last week, you noticed, I hope, that they still found a way to try and make rancher Clive Bundy look as if he were the cause – that he was just some conservative nut-job.
That’s NOT the case; he just wisely balked at entering into a nefarious contract with an abusively, tyrannical governmental entity. This “legal contract” was designed to take his property rights away – property his family had used and had for generations – for well over a hundred years ! ! !
The BLM and U.S Senator Harry Reid’s intent, has now been proven to have been to be of nefarious origin – greed and corruption! … not too much different than the “land barons” obvious abuse … those who get involved in government so they can tax people off their land, before buying it and subsequently lowering their own taxes.
Signing a legal document with this new government entity, (new in terms of the Bundy ranch’s longevity) would be tantamount to signing your livelihood away!
Below, is the explanation, from a neighbor:
Written By Kena Lytle Gloeckner
There have been a lot of people criticizing Clive Bundy because he did not pay his grazing fees for 20 years. The public is also probably wondering why so many other cowboys are supporting Mr. Bundy even though they paid their fees and Clive did not. What you people probably do not realize is that on every rancher’s grazing permit it says the following: “You are authorized to make grazing use of the lands, under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management and covered by this grazing permit, upon your acceptance of the terms and conditions of this grazing permit and payment of grazing fees when due.” The “mandatory” terms and conditions go on to list the allotment, the number and kind of livestock to be grazed, when the permit begins and ends, the number of active or suspended AUMs (animal units per month), etc. The terms and conditions also list specific requirements such as where salt or mineral supplements can be located, maximum allowable use of forage levels (40% of annual growth), etc., and include a lot more stringent policies that must be adhered to. Every rancher must sign this “contract” agreeing to abide by the TERMS AND CONDITIONS before he or she can make payment.
In the early 90s, the BLM went on a frenzy and drastically cut almost every rancher’s permit because of this desert tortoise issue, even though all of us ranchers knew that cow and desert tortoise had co-existed for a hundred+ years. As an example, a family friend had his permit cut by 90%. For those of you who are non ranchers, that would be equated to getting your paycheck cut 90%. In 1976 there were approximately 52 ranching permittees in this area of Nevada. Presently, there are 3. Most of these people lost their livelihoods because of the actions of the BLM. Clive Bundy was one of these people who received extremely unfair and unreasonable TERMS AND CONDITIONS. Keep in mind that Mr. Bundy was required to sign this contract before he was allowed to pay. Had Clive signed on the dotted line, he would have, in essence, signed his very livelihood away. And so Mr. Bundy took a stand, not only for himself, but for all of us. He refused to be destroyed by a tyrannical federal entity and to have his American liberties and freedoms taken away. Also keep in mind that all ranchers financially paid dearly for the forage rights those permits allow – – not rights to the land, but rights to use the forage that grows on that land. Many of these AUMS are water based, meaning that the rancher also has a vested right (state owned, not federal) to the waters that adjoin the lands and allow the livestock to drink. These water rights were also purchased at a great price.
If a rancher cannot show beneficial use of the water (he must have the appropriate number of livestock that drinks and uses that water), then he loses that water right. Usually water rights and forage rights go hand in hand. Contrary to what the BLM is telling you, they NEVER compensate a rancher for the AUMs they take away. Most times, they tell ranchers that their AUMS are “suspended,” but not removed. Unfortunately, my family has thousands of “suspended” AUMs that will probably never be returned. And so, even though these ranchers throughout the course of a hundred years invested thousands(and perhaps millions) of dollars and sacrificed along the way to obtain these rights through purchase from others, at a whim the government can take everything away with the stroke of a pen. This is the very thing that Clive Bundy singlehandedly took a stand against. Thank you, Clive, from a rancher who considers you a hero.
Written By Kena Lytle Gloeckner
Loma Wharton. Co-Chair
www.liberators2004 dot org
V.A.C.A.T.E. – Valiantly Affirming Constitutional Authority Through Education
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