Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby Iamwhomiam » Fri Oct 28, 2016 1:18 pm

That's how I see it, as well, WRex. Always handy to have a bunch of patriots around to round-up for a desired distraction or attraction.

The militia movement will continue to grow, regardless of who becomes president, Novem5er, if for no other reason than as a justification for increasing the militarization of local police, of course. But their are other reasons that won't disappear after the election.
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Fri Oct 28, 2016 4:28 pm

Deep cover agents, highly possible. White citizen male/reactionary privilege, inevitable. This may also apply to those who may choose to shoot "suspicious" poc, blow up abortion clinics, etc. in the good ol' USA. Void where prohibited by law (sometimes).
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Fri Oct 28, 2016 5:33 pm

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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:32 am

Acquittal of Bundys is proof of racial double standards — and a greenlight for right-wing terrorism

ARUN GUPTA


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Militia member patrols the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (YouTube)


If a group of heavily armed Muslim Americans or Black Lives Matter activists seized public facilities and land, the government would have rushed in with all guns blazing and anyone who survived would be locked up for life. The record of post-9/11 terror prosecutions is littered with hundreds of cases of entrapment, paid informants, and “fake terror plots.”

For more than a decade the feds have also prosecuted similarly flimsy cases against environmental, animal-rights, and Occupy Wall Street activists, known as the “Green Scare.” Numerous peaceful activists have been sentenced to prison for more than a decade for little more than conversations egged on by paid FBI provocateurs. Even in cases where violence was planned, no one was ever injured and it was often completely instigated and organized by the government.

But when it comes to the Bundys, they actively planned the illegal armed takeover. At least two months before the refuge occupation began Jan. 2, 2016, the Bundys visited local sheriff Dave Ward and warned him to prevent two local ranchers convicted of arson from going to federal prison. According to Ward, the Bundys said they would “bring hundreds of people to town [and] attempt to overpower or overthrow my authority as sheriff.”

Inside Malheur, in a two-hour conversation with Ammon Bundy in his pickup truck, when this reporter pointed out their intent was to spark a violent uprising against the government, he did not deny it. Militia members openly carried weapons on federal land, which is illegal, and the Raw Story witnessed the militia stealing and damaging government equipment, violating the law in tearing up sensitive archeological sites, and building barricades and bunkers for an apocalyptic showdown. The Bundys also set up a kangaroo court to indict, try, convict, and remove government officials from office.

Yet according to the jury the government did not prove a conspiracy. Meanwhile, halfway across the country in North Dakota, a huge force of police and private security are viciously attacking Native Americans peacefully protecting their land from the ravages of the oil and gas industry.

The Bundy case is more proof of the well-documented racial bias embedded in the jury system. The notion that an armed militia with snipers stationed in the watchtower, blockading all road into the refuge and vowing to die for their cause did not impede federal workers from doing their job is as absurd as it sounds and is an indictment of the deep racial biases in America.

The silver lining is the Bundy brothers and their father still face trial for their violent confrontation in Nevada with government officials in 2014 over their refusal to pay $1 million in overdue grazing fees on federal lands.

The Bundy acquittal will embolden violent right-wing militias to seize other public lands, especially West of the Rockies where there is a movement funded by the Koch Brothers to undermine federal control of huge swaths of land.

Undoubtedly these violent militias will be aided and abetted by legions of Trump’s supporters calling for a “violent revolution” if Clinton wins the presidency as expected. The government’s hands-off approach toward the militia movement is a failure.
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby brekin » Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:33 pm



This isn't a good comparison. The militia people were vilified in the media and there was no pretense in the government or media of even likening there protest/occupation to anything similar environmental protest or indigenous wise. We talked about that on here. The liberal democratic governor was pressuring the fbi to end this sooner than later, with no semblance of wishing to dialogue with the protestors. The state police and fbi were actually more patient than the state government and media. But they were attacked and arrested to. Remember one guy was killed in this stand off to, which for many was just collateral damage and not anything they felt responsible for in when and how it ended.

Now sure they were exonerated at trial by a jury, which may not happen for a similar unarmed protest occupation by idigneous or environmental groups but that is the court system after they have been taken into custody. Before that there were no free passes. And I'm someone not sympathetic to their cause, but its just disingenuous to imply that these guys got a cake walk when they were taken down.
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I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Sat Oct 29, 2016 4:37 pm

This Land Is Our Land' Ep. 11: Verdict

This is a discussion on the recent verdict in the Bundy trial from Oregon Public Broadcasting, who has done great regular reporting and podcasts on the Malheur occupation and the militia trial. #oregonunderattack #yokolharam #whitesis #vanillaisis


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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Sat Oct 29, 2016 5:01 pm

TAKING ON PATRIOT MOVEMENT TALKING POINTS

CLAIM: The occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was a legal and nonviolent occupation by peaceful protestors, just like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or the Civil Rights movement.

REPLY: The Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Civil Rights movements did not vow to “not to be taken alive,” and did not argue their actions were lawful or constitutional. In fact, they planned to be arrested and jailed. Many laws were broken by the occupation; the argument that they were not is based on the Patriot movement’s fantasies that all gun restrictions are illegal and that the federal government cannot legally own the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge land. These arguments do not have any legal backing.

The right to “peacefully assemble and petition the government for redress of grievance”—to protest—is a right of the people that predates the founding of our government. That is why it was included in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As such, peaceful protest is as much a part of governing the United States as is Congress, the courts, or the presidency. Inherent in this right is that peaceful protesters may have to face arrest from unjust authorities, as one way to right an unjust law. Carrying weapons to a protest means it is no longer a protest, but an act of intimidation with a very clear implied threat of violence. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers were armed. Federal employees of the wildlife sanctuary were intimidated from coming to work by these armed occupiers.


More at: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2016/1 ... ng-points/
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Sun Oct 30, 2016 6:45 am

Rural Oregon deserves better

Many of us across Oregon are reeling after the acquittal of the Bundys and some of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers. How can seven people who orchestrated a 41-day armed standoff that held an entire community hostage be acquitted, especially on the same day over 100 indigenous water protectors in North Dakota were shot at, beaten, and arrested?

Some media are repeating the false Bundy talking point that this acquittal is “a victory for rural communities”. Which rural communities? Talk to the residents of Harney County, and residents of neighboring Eastern Oregon counties where militia activity is widespread, and they will tell you that the acquittal puts a target on their backs if they speak up for the simple right to air political opinions that dissent from the militias. The Burns Paiute Tribe are pointing out the hypocrisy and insult of so-called patriots claiming tribal land as their own, threatening tribal leadership, desecrating the land, damaging and stealing tribal artifacts during the occupation, and getting away with it scot-free.

We are seeing militia members celebrate and claim the acquittal as a victory; an affirmation of their tactics, which include claiming to represent entire communities they don’t actually reside in, while using intimidation, threats of violence, and vandalism to silence critique and political opposition. This verdict has sent a message that these tactics are not only effective, but also go without consequence.

Whatever the reason for the verdict, it has greatly increased the anxiety felt by rural Oregonians. Many worry their community could be next. Rural Oregonians, and especially the residents of Harney County, have already experienced months of harassment and intimidation by Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and other paramilitaries just for disagreeing. Militia supporters have threatened violence toward critics (including the Rural Organizing Project), indigenous leaders, law enforcement, and even the Governor of Oregon. This decision leaves many people in fear.

It is impossible to ignore the racism of the militia land seizure in Harney County, the acquittal, and even the Federal charges themselves. At no time in this process was justice sought for the seizure and desecration of the Burns Paiute Tribe’s unceded lands, arguably the most egregious crime committed by these so-called patriots. We also see this structural racism mirrored in the news from North Dakota, where unarmed indigenous people, defending their Treaty lands from being bulldozed for an oil pipeline, are faced with militarized state police committing violence on the behalf of corporations. Meanwhile, in Oregon, armed white militia members face no consequences for holding a community hostage for over a month, running rampant over sacred ground. Many of the officers involved in the military intervention in Standing Rock hail from rural areas just like ours where emergency services are already stretched past their limit, yet they are being committed to act as publicly funded rent-a-cops for an oil conglomerate. The assumption that our rural communities support these actions is simply wrong.

This acquittal reminds many rural Oregonians once again that we must fight to overcome our isolation. Our rural communities across the state are struggling to stay connected, to repair damaged social ties and institutions ravaged by years of recession. Armed militia groups offer only more divisions, fostering a culture of fear that raises temperatures in our communities. In fact, Patriot groups in Oregon and corporations trying to advance the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota thrive on our division, pitting us against each other and making us believe that we are marginal. Militias and so-called Patriot groups have grown in power in rural communities in Oregon largely because of the vacuum left by decades of divestment and neglect that have created massive crises in social services and safety nets, from 911 dispatch to schools. Rural Oregonians are feeling more vulnerable than ever before.


Continues at: http://www.rop.org/rural-oregon-deserves-better/
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby PufPuf93 » Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:50 am

The militia (and associated "wise use" and the like movements) is a stalking horse for removal of western public lands from federal ownership and management for the goal of privatization of natural resources to benefit transnational corporations, whether by removal from the public commons or from ceding to state ownership and presumably more economic exploitation. The "militias" and "wise users" are tools hoisted by believing in their own selfish and self-reflecting desires and rhetoric.

The Bundy gang acquittal is a jury nullification or prosecution incompetence and surprised and troubles me. There was a smorgasbord of violations available for the failed prosecution.
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:15 am

I definitely agree. Here is more:


It's Not Just Militia Members Who Want to Take Over Federal Land

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Give me land, lots of land: Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory

As a young man, Ken Ivory served as a Mormon missionary in Guatemala. These days, he's still looking for converts. Ivory, a Republican state representative from a Salt Lake City suburb, has spent the past three years traveling the American West to convince state and local officials that they can claim millions of acres of federal land to use as they wish.

The federal government owns 47 percent of the 11 Western states. Much of this land is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and is open for hunting, ranching, logging, mining, and drilling. Usually, these public lands can only change hands with approval from Congress—something that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Nevertheless, Ivory's concept has caught on beyond the militia types who are demanding that the feds give up control of their holdings such as the eastern Oregon wildlife refuge currently held by armed occupiers. The Republican National Committee has endorsed the idea of turning over federal land to the states, and in March, the Senate passed a budget amendment sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would create a fund for selling or transferring the land. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has set forth a proposal that the federal government cannot own more than half the land in any state.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has also endorsed state or private control of federal land. "You run into problems now with the federal government being, you know, this bully," Paul told a crowd in June before meeting with Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who refused to pay more than $1 million in fees for grazing his cattle on federal land. The meeting, Bundy said, helped show Paul "the difference between Cliven Bundy's stand and Ken Ivory's stand." Bundy's son Ammon is currently leading the armed occupation in Oregon.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) with Cliven and Carol Bundy in June.

The idea of taking over federal property makes for an easy sound bite, says David Garbett, staff counsel for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a preservation group. But, he explains, "Every time people look at the arguments, and they have time to think and to evaluate what this is all about, it fails." Ronald Reagan campaigned as "one who cheers and supports" the late '70s Sagebrush Rebellion, but once he was in the White House, the push to sell off federal land stalled.

No Western state has been as enthusiastic about a landgrab as Utah. In 2012, it passed the Transfer of Public Lands Act, which demanded the feds hand over some 31 million acres, potentially opening them up to even more coal mining and oil and gas extraction. An analysis commissioned by the Legislature found that the state would incur huge expenses if it suddenly gained all that land. (Its costs for firefighting on public land would increase sixfold; Ivory has suggested reducing fire risks with more logging.) That fat price tag is one reason former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, vetoed a land transfer bill similar to Utah's. Nonetheless, the Utah state Legislature has approved spending up to $2 million to prepare to sue the federal government.

Ivory's nonprofit has received money from Americans for Prosperity, the dark-money group founded by the Koch brothers.

The usual suspects are backing Ivory. He sits on the federalism committee of the American Legislative Exchange Council. His nonprofit, the American Lands Council (ALC), is largely funded by local and county governments eager to gain control of land in their communities. It has also taken funding from utility companies and Americans for Prosperity, the dark-money group founded by the Koch brothers.



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... land-bundy
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:05 am

Excerpted from: https://godsandradicals.org/2016/10/30/ ... apitalism/

Occupations, Contrasting Responses, and Capitalism

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Race is undeniably a factor in these disparities. However, in focusing solely on race, one fails to account for the role that capitalism and state power also play in the differing treatment, especially when it comes to state violence. In that regard, Standing Rock has commonality with Black Lives Matter: the level of repression experienced by both groups is not only due to both historical and current systematic racism by the police, but is also influenced by why they are protesting in the first place in relation to capitalism.

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Ammon Bundy, the leader of the Malheur occupation, is the son of Cliven Bundy, a successful cattle rancher who grazes his cattle on unceded Paiute land in Nevada. His father has been engaged in a longstanding dispute with the federal government for well over two decades over grazing fees on land that neither party has a legitimate claim to. The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holds title to the land, but Cliven Bundy maintains that the land belongs to the state, not the federal government, and that BLM does not have authority to collect grazing fees. This specific stance is based on the one of the core beliefs of the sovereign citizens movement – the idea that the federal government has little to no authority and that local law supersedes federal law in most instances.

The dispute culminated in an armed standoff between federal agents and militiamen rallying behind Bundy’s cause over an attempted cattle seizure, an incident in which federal agents relented and returned the cattle. This militia ‘victory’ over the government strengthened and legitimized the Bundys’ movement, and empowered many of those who then went on to occupy the Malheur refuge. The recent acquittal of the ‘patriots’ who occupied the Malheur refuge further serves to legitimize their positions and ideology.

While the Malheur occupiers and patriot movements in the West position themselves as anti-establishment, heroes of the working man who is sick of government overreach, that does not change the fact that much of their beliefs and ideologies are aligned with those of the ruling classes and the State itself. They are in favor of privatizing and selling off public land in the name of profit, a position which is of great benefit to numerous subsets of business and industry.

If the patriot movement were to succeed in their goal regarding land rights, it’s not the working man who would benefit: rather, it’s big business. The growth of the patriot movement, and the increasing adoption of their ideology is of great benefit to all of those who wish to privatize the vast amounts of BLM land throughout the West for profit, whether it be cattle ranchers or mineral and oil prospectors.

Although the patriot movement panders–and widely appeals– to the working class, the Bundys themselves have much more in common with the upper classes. Ammon Bundy may dress like a rancher, but he a businessman, owning several companies in Arizona including a car fleet. Cliven Bundy is also a successful businessman, and much of his wealth has been dependent on subsidies from the very government he opposes. Even before he refused to pay his grazing fees, the percentage he was paying the government was a fraction of the fees charged by owners of privately held lands.

Bundy benefits from the same types of corporate welfare that so much of the ruling class depends on to further inflate their wealth.

ImageProfit is also central to the Standing Rock protests, but this time the protesters are not fighting in the name of profit but are instead indirectly fighting to impede it. The Dakota Access Pipeline is a $3.7 billion dollar project that will then enrich the profits of oil companies for many years to come once it is completed. While the opposition to the pipeline is rooted in water rights and protections of sacred land, the protests themselves are a disruption of the capitalist machine and a victory would be an even greater blow.

To oppose the pipeline is to stand in the way of enormous profits, profits that benefit the State as well as capitalism itself.

Beyond the direct and actual economic impact, the differences in the overlying ideologies that frame the two scenarios also play a role. The patriot movement is a movement in favor of dismantling the commons in the name of profit. They seek the right to declare and enforce private property rights on land that theoretically belongs to the “public.” Their interests may be personal, but enclosing and selling off the commons is an essential function of capitalism.

Any and all attempts to protect or restore the commons is a potential threat to profits. Movements that fight for the commons are acting in direct contradiction with the needs and logic of capital. The indigenous-led movement opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline is explicitly fighting to maintain clean water and protect the commons on behalf of the people. They also speak of ‘sovereignty’, but the meaning of that for them is based in community and collective sustenance, as opposed to the ideology of individualism. The desire for profit is not a factor in their resistance. Their resistance is based in their very survival.

It is not just the physical and economic effects of the resistance that are a threat to capitalism. The collective power and shared values that tie the pipeline resisters together–and the deepening of those values and connections over time as they continue their resistance–is an egregoric threat to capitalism in itself. This is true even when completely detached from the actualized impact of the protest, which also potentially factors into the disproportionate government response. As can be seen from the violence against the labor movement to the Black Panthers or Occupy, the modern State has a long and detailed history of enacting violence against and attempting to destroy movements that seek to dismantle capitalism and/or challenge the social order.


More at: https://godsandradicals.org/2016/10/30/ ... pitalism/#
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby American Dream » Mon Oct 31, 2016 7:51 pm

http://www.abetterworld.me/blog/analysi ... -struggles

Analysis Needed on Sudden White Militia Solidarity to Our Struggles

Ahjamu Umi

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If it wasn't so arrogant and sad it would be hilarious how European (White) movement experts are falling all over each other in order to validate White militia leader Ammon Bundy's call for solidarity with Standing Rock Water Protectors, anti-police terrorism activism, etc. If you don't know, Bundy was acquitted in federal court last week in the case against him and other White militia members for the invasion and occupation of the Malheur Bird Refuge in Southeast Oregon earlier this year. We want to make sure you White activists and experts understand that we really aren't trying to hear your broke down analysis about solidarity. The reason I say this is because we have been telling European working class people that we are not your enemies and that your enemy is the power structure for hundreds of years, literally. You can go and check speeches by people like Paul Cuffee, Edward Blyden, Ida B. Wells, and Frederick Douglass to see that. And, during the 1990s, people reacted with complete antagonism when Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) said repeatedly that the "white right" had evolved from being the government's front-line troops against the African liberation movement into being the government's number one attacker. Despite the always dependable arrogance from far too many within the White community (whether left or right), Kwame was clearly on to something when he discussed how the feds and police either worked with, or turned a blind eye to the KKK's clear fusion with local police departments and its active terror against African people during the 50s and 60s. Kwame's analysis continued to assert that those same groups were no longer just terrorizing us. They were starting to direct their rage against the very government they previously worked hand in hand with against us. Today, his words are prophetic. That same right white movement that carried out terror against us and who formed the FBI supported Guardians of (against) the Oglala Nation (GOONS) at Pine Ridge reservation in the mid 70s, has spent that last 20 years waging war against the U.S. government. You know the examples because unlike the government's terror against our movements, these instances were widely covered. I'm talking about the shootout at Ruby Ridge in 93, the Waco standoff. Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Federal building bombing in 95. The standoff at Cliven Bundy's ranch in 2014, and of course the Malheur occupation this year. So, we saw and identified the commonalities between our communities long before you did so you can stop with the instant expert analysis on White solidarity.

And, since there is that issue of the White right's historical violence against our movements for justice and their continued white nationalist foundation today, we won't be smoothing over this troubled relationship just because they are sending out a tweet or two expressing solidarity. Plus, I have some personal experience here. Brave rural organizers within the Rural Organizing Project (ROP), want to bolster up the identity and value of rural Oregon by helping local communities create and maintain values based on justice and not white supremacy. By doing this, they have attracted the anger of groups affiliated to the national Patriot Militia movement. These brave ROP souls have been verbally harassed and threatened with death and sexual assault. Their homes have been violated. In response to this, some of us agreed to accompany and secure them on their tour to talk about all of this and so I experienced first hand the antagonism many of these people expressed towards these activists. I experienced the stares and disgust many of these people apparently felt towards me for being an African man who dared to come into their communities without flinching. I experienced attempts at intimidation (unsuccessful), being shot at, and all of the cowardly tactics these people direct at those brave folks who simply want to tell the truth. So, with that backdrop, we cannot just forget all of that just because somebody wake up with a free out of jail card and a sudden realization that it might be a good idea to try and connect with the rest of the reasonable world.

Of course, there's no question that working class people of all nationalities are under attack and that our best chance at defeating those who oppress us is to unite, but a lot has to happen before we can even seriously have that discussion. There can be no uniting with the militia community as long as their beliefs are tied to that racist concept of the U.S. as a free and sovereign state. The U.S. is a settler colony on stolen Indigenous land that was built and is maintained on exploiting Africa and other places around the world. The only thing great about this country is the lie of manifest destiny and white supremacy. Until White people, left or right, accept that and begin to do work to abolish this entire concept of American identity (because remember - American identity equals white supremacy), there won't be any unity. That's why we see Bundy's pledge of solidarity, but we also see that he's expressing support for Standing Rock after staging an extremely disrespectful occupation of Pauite Land. We also haven't forgotten that his father said that the best time for African people was during slavery. Please don't interpret any of this as any type of plea to White militias to change their minds. That happening is so far down on my priority list I would have to say honestly that it most likely isn't on my list. The point here is that genuine European activists should see all of this as a call to action to do the necessary work in their communities to change the conscious level in those communities. The sole reason why these Patriotic Militia folks are gaining so much ground in recruitment is because very few within the White activist circles is beating them to it (outside of a few brave groups like ROP). There are genuine feelings of oppression and isolation among White people. Donald Trump's campaign should be a clear indicator of that. So, you people need to stop talking to us (because we ain't listening anyway) and start talking to each other. Stop reducing the acquittal of Bundy and the others to simple "white privilege." Yes, it is that, but its much more than just that. The water protectors at Standing Rock are engaging in the sacred struggle of the Indigenous people against the empire that has been built on their backs since Columbus's drunk @ss crashed into this hemisphere 500+ years ago. The African movements against police terrorism, acknowledging that police departments evolved out of slave patrols, have been going on since the first Africans were stolen from Africa. This capitalist system is all about exploiting and oppressing brown peoples. So, when we stand up and organize, its a threat against everything this backward system represents so the system always has, and always will, come down hard on us because the power structure understands that when we win, they lose. They have never seriously sought to challenge the KKK and other white supremacists, militias, etc., because none of those groups are doing anything to challenge the U.S. capitalist system. Their ideologies are in concert with the empire. Up to this point, they're just mad that they have been locked out from getting their cut of the booty that is being stolen every day from Indigenous, African, Asian, and other brown peoples.

So, if you truly want that solidarity to mean something more than assuaging your White ego into being able to believe you are more than just a descendant of settlers and slave owners, than get to work organizing your people around the values indicated above. I observed many younger people in the militias when out with ROP who are not firmly entrenched in those backward ideologies yet. They are people who are misguided. You can still reach them if you hurry. Then, after you seriously do that work, then come back and engage us. Until then, we have much better things to do than listen to your tired voices.
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Mar 25, 2017 10:26 pm

FBI Agents Posed As Filmmakers To Interview Armed Militia In A Dramatic Standoff

The name for the fake documentary was America Reloaded.

posted on Mar. 23, 2017, at 6:18 p.m.
Salvador Hernandez

Jim Urquhart / Reuters
FBI agents posed as documentary filmmakers to talk to militia members during an armed standoff in the Nevada desert, then used the recorded interviews against two men now on trial in federal court.
The undercover operation, detailed during testimony in federal court Wednesday, shows the extent of the FBI’s operation to infiltrate militia groups that organized tense standoffs with federal officials in Nevada in 2014 and Oregon in 2016.
Militia members, now facing charges in Nevada, were heavily armed as they flocked to the property of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in 2014. Bundy, who owed the government about $1 million in grazing fees, sparked the standoff with agents of the Bureau of Land Management after refusing to pay up.
The standoff reached a boiling point as BLM agents trying to impound Bundy’s cattle were prevented from doing so at gunpoint by militia members, forcing federal officials to withdraw.
On Wednesday, FBI Special Agent Charles Johnson testified about how agents crossed into the other side of the standoff pretending to be documentary makers to talk to the militia, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
Among the people interviewed for the fake documentary, America Reloaded, were two men now on trial in Nevada for the standoff, Scott Drexler and Eric Parker.
“I want to stand for the Constitution,” Parker told the undercover agents in a recording played in the court Wednesday, according to the Review Journal.

Jim Urquhart / Reuters
During one of the most tense moments of the standoff, Parker laid on the asphalt of a highway overpass wearing a bulletproof vest and aiming a rifle at federal agents.
“If they started shooting at people in the crowd, I would have been able to lay down cover fire,” he said in the video.
The undercover agents in Nevada would not be the last time the FBI tried to infiltrate Bundy’s support network of militias and other groups.
Emboldened by what they saw as a victory in Nevada in 2014 when agents withdrew, Bundy’s sons Ammon and Ryan were among the leaders of a group that in 2016 headed to Oregon for a similar standoff after taking over a wildlife refuge to protest the arrest of a local rancher and his son.
Four men were convicted of various charges in that case, but the leaders of the standoff, including Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were acquitted.
Federal prosecutors in Oregon said there were nine FBI informants who infiltrated the refuge and acted as supporters of the armed standoff. Among them was a man who introduced himself as John Killman. He spoke with a French accent and helped train militia members at the compound.
Mostly anti-government and paranoid, members of the militia seemed to constantly assume they had been infiltrated by undercover agents or paid informants, who they referred to often as “subversives.”
Speculation about informants and undercover agents exploded at the end of the Oregon standoff as supporters, fearing an FBI raid as agents surrounded the refuge, began to leave the property.
On social media and in closed Facebook groups, participants of the armed occupation quickly began accusing one another of being an informant and using any reason to speculate about who had “flipped.”
Ultimately, many of those accused of being informants were charged with federal crimes. But Wednesday’s testimony in Nevada showed that their suspicions of being infiltrated weren’t unfounded.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/salvadorhernan ... .thpqkNRD8
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:56 am

With a pardon, Trump perpetuates Bundy standoff

Clemency for Oregon ranchers convicted of arson fans anti-federal flames.

Rocky Barker Opinion July 17, 2018
Note: the opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of High Country News, its board or staff. If you'd like to share an opinion piece of your own, please write Betsy Marston at betsym@hcn.org.



Rocky Barker is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News. He covered the Malheur revolt for the Idaho Statesman, retiring this year after working for 43 years as a journalist.
President Donald Trump’s pardon of the Oregon ranchers whose legal case helped spark the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge perpetuates the polarization triggered by the entire Bundy saga.

Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, were convicted of arson in 2012. The men set two fires on federal land, one in 2001, witnesses testified, to cover up a poaching incident, and the second in 2006, initially allegedly set as a back burn. This happened at a time when relations between federal officials at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and many local ranchers had become especially tense.


The charges against the two men were brought under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which required a mandatory five-year sentence. Instead, U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan sentenced Dwight Hammond to three months in prison and Steven to a year, saying the mandatory sentence “would shock the conscience to me.”

That wasn’t enough jail time for U.S. Attorney Billy Williams. He appealed the sentence, and in 2015 the Hammonds were ordered to complete their five-year sentences.

That’s when Ammon and Ryan Bundy weighed in. Late in 2015, they came to Burns, Oregon, to take up the Hammonds’ cause, which even some moderate ranchers supported.

The Bundys’ involvement inspired militia members and other supporters, who had clashed with federal enforcement officers at the family’s Nevada ranch in 2014. That dispute was over federal grazing fees that Cliven Bundy, the family patriarch, had refused to pay for decades.

The Hammonds, however, ignored the Bundys’ call to join their occupation of the wildlife refuge. Instead, they decided to return to prison, thereby demonstrating some support for the rule of law.


The wetlands of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon are an important resource for migrating birds.
USFWS - Pacific Region
I spoke with federal employees whose families were bullied by some of the men with assault rifles who came from across the West to join in the Bundys’ protest. The people who worked for the government were members of the community — coaches of Little League teams and volunteers in churches who also served in local government. But the Bundy supporters treated them like enemies.

Rancher Fred Otley, a former president of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said he thought that state and local officials had overreacted to the presence of militia members. When community meetings were shut down and schools closed, that only encouraged conspiracy theories about federal agents stalking and harassing local people. He and other ranchers had no intention of siding with the Bundys, he said, but he also believed the federal government had treated the Hammonds too harshly.

When the 41-day occupation of the wildlife refuge ended, one man, LaVoy Finicum, was dead. But the division over land policy continued. The Bundys and five others were acquitted of conspiracy, weapons and theft charges after a five-week trial in 2016. But many of their followers are either in jail or face fines and probation.

Then in January, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the case against Cliven Bundy, his sons and others involved in the 2014 Nevada standoff. She said that prosecutors had engaged in “flagrant misconduct” by withholding evidence that could have supported the Bundys’ case.

No matter what you thought about the Bundys and the radical band of anti-government, gun-toting extremists who follow them, it was clear that the federal government had bungled the two cases.

Imagine this: What if President Barack Obama had commuted the Hammonds’ sentence, showing clemency for the two men who had been willing to return to prison and accept the legal consequences for their actions in destroying federal property? Instead, it was President Trump who gave the Hammonds a full pardon this month, thereby feeding the fires of conflict over federal land management.

An earlier, more nuanced approach might have placated Fred Otley and other Oregon ranchers, who might have felt that justice had been served. It might also have helped the many federal public servants who must carry out their jobs protecting our public lands, often in lonely and vulnerable circumstances.

Now, provocateurs like the Bundys can feel empowered to push their alternative brand of American history and the law. The standoff continues.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/opinion-wi ... y-standoff




maybe trump will pardon this sovereign citizen also

JJ MacNab


Based on his social media pages, Clark is a sovereign citizen who believes in just about every kooky conspiracy out there, including QAnon, Pizzagate, Jade Helm 15, flat earth theories, NESARA, Jesuit conservancies, shape-shifting lizard overlords. You name it, he believes it.



I've read through eight years of Facebook posts, and he's been making sovereign arguments since at least mid-2010, when he was active in the Restore America Plan (RAP,) which later turned into the alt-gov group Republic of the united States of America (RuSA.)

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The people who believe to the RuSA alternative government believe that the real/de jure) US government ceased to exist in 1871 and that an imposter/de facto government has been in power ever since.

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To remedy this situation, RuSA has put together a substitute government true to the pre-1871 model and they are waiting until the current government collapses at which time they will step in with their "lawful" alt-gov and take control.

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They have a fake President, VP, Cabinet, Supreme Court, House of Representatives, Marshal Service, and so on. Perhaps the most interesting bit is that they are allied with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Police Officers Association (CSPOA.)



Despite the group's significant early noise (they sent letters to the State Governors telling them to step down or else...) and mind-numbing levels of bureaucracy, they haven't ever really attracted more than a few thousand adherents.

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One of their early supporters was the Forrest Clark, the arson suspect arrested in Southern California earlier this week.

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Clark was very excited when Timothy Turner of Alabama was elected POTUS of the RuSA in 2010. Alas, Turner was unable to complete his Presidential term as he is currently serving 18 years in federal prison for fraud.

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Clark was such an enthusiastic support he even traveled to the first real gathering of the group in Colorado in late 2010. President Turner is the guy in the middle, Clark is the one with the sunflower.

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I found several other sovereign markers, ranging from redemption theory schemes to tax protest scams.

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Over the years, Clark bought into just about every nutty theory out there. Satanic rituals, shape-shifting lizard people, Jade Helm 15, Agenda 21, targeted individuals, medical quackery, and so on.

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The guy was like a canary in a coal mine. He was always one of the first true believers to glom onto whatever conspiracy theory was new and sexy that month.



While all this may sound harmless, his timeline in recent years is filled with pictures of advanced skin cancers on his leg and face, and he was treating this disease with home remedies he found online --baking soda and essential oils, for example.



Like so many in the country, he recently became fixated with fabricated politically motivated pedophilia, and was an early QAnon "researcher."


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If you've followed me for a few months, you'll recognize several of his posts.

Fake Judge Anna, for example. (Full name and title: Anna Maria Wilhelmina Hanna Sophia Riezinger-von Reitzenstein von Lettow-Vorbeck, Private Attorney in service to His Holiness, Pope Francis)

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And remember that fake cop who tried to convince people that Antifa was planning a violent overthrow of the government last November. Fake uniform, fake badge, fake cop car, criminal rap sheet. I posted about 5 threads debunking this guy.


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Based on his timeline, Clark spent a lot of time on YouTube absorbing 9/11 truther theories, Sandy Hook was fake theories, and just about every major Alex Jones "false flag" story.

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The So Cal HolyFire started next to Clark's cabin, but his was the only one of 14 cabins that wasn't destroyed. 20,000 people have been evacuated. countless animals maimed or killed. and as many as 17,000 homes are at risk.

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I get a lot of comments from conspiracy theorists who think it's annoying that I spend time debunking their myths, but these fake stories have real consequences.



In the case of Forrest Clark, nestled in between Sandy Hook and QAnon posts, there are conspiracy theories involving fires.

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If you care to browse through the mind someone obsessed with conspiracy theories, here's his Facebook page. Realistically. it'll probably be shut down in the next couple of days. https://www.facebook.com/ForrestGClark



Update: I found Clark's role in the sovereign citizen alternative government group RuSA. He was elected Representative for the state of Kansas.

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I try to understand why a person would wander out into the sovereign citizen / conspiracy theory weeds. It usually breaks down into 1) desperation (ex. about to lose a home to foreclosure,) 2) greed (keep your taxes for yourself) or 3) redemption for a horrible past experience.



Forrest Clark published his life story online and answered the question for me. He provides a grotesque laundry list of the drug, alcohol, and emotional/physical abuse that haunted his family and killed his wife.

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He then contrasts that to the successes he found through work, volunteering, and his participation in the sovereign citizen alt-gov.

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Please keep in mind that his brief autobiography is how he views his past. What really happened may be different. Feeling persecuted is a pretty common theme in the movement.

From a news report this morning:

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His work history is equally problematic:

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https://twitter.com/jjmacnab/status/1027783814045560832
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Militia seizes federal building in Oregon

Postby seemslikeadream » Fri Dec 07, 2018 5:19 pm

Ammon Bundy Is Quitting The Militia Movement After Breaking With Trump On Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric

"The vast majority seemed to hang on to what seemed like hate, and fear, and almost warmongering, and I don't want to associate myself with warmongers."

Salvador Hernandez
Posted on December 6, 2018, at 11:05 p.m. ET


Rob Kerr / AFP / Getty Images
For more than six years Ammon Bundy and his family amassed hundreds of followers and supporters willing to pick up a gun at a moment's notice and rally to their side for a confrontation with the federal government.

Bundy led two armed standoffs against the feds in Nevada and Oregon, and his family quickly became the face of a growing militia movement, bringing a national spotlight to armed groups eager for a conflict with what they believed to be an overreaching government.

The militia groups, with members holding a mix of right-wing, anti-government, and conspiratorial views, had been growing since 2008 thanks to their heavy use of social media and binding opposition to then-president Barack Obama. The standoffs in 2014 and 2016 made the Bundy family, including Ammon, leading figures in the movement.

So when he logged on to Facebook last week to speak to his supporters in defense of the caravan of Central American migrants gathered at the southern border, a frequent target of President Trump, he figured he'd face some criticism.

"To group them all up like, frankly, our president has done — you know, trying to speak respectfully — but he has basically called them all criminals and said they're not coming in here," Bundy said in the video. "What about individuals, those who have come for reasons of need for their families, you know, the fathers and mothers and children that come here and were willing to go through the process to apply for asylum so they can come into this country and benefit from not having to be oppressed continually?"

Bundy went on, dispelling conspiracy theories that billionaire George Soros was behind the caravan or that terrorists were using the group to sneak into the US.

But the backlash from his supporters was immediate, with many repudiating Bundy for his views. Followers who had traveled to his father's ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 during an armed standoff with federal agents over unpaid cattle grazing fees said they regretted doing so. Others claimed Bundy was being paid by left-wing "globalists" to switch sides. Some told him they wished he was dead, or that militias had never supported his family.

Bundy was shocked by the swift reaction.

"I expected to get a decent amount of pushback, but I also believed that I could explain to them why I'd taken those positions and why," he told BuzzFeed News. "But you know, I've always had these kinds of thoughts that people were not really listening to the principles of things, that they had aligned with me for some other reasons, and that some of those [reasons] are good and some of those might not be, but this last video kind of confirmed that."


Screenshot / Facebook
So on Tuesday, Bundy shut down his social media accounts and said he was stepping away from the public light and the "patriot groups" that had gained national attention while supporting the Nevada ranching family. The decision to quit wasn't an easy one, Bundy said, but the movement's unforgiving opposition to the migrant caravan and what he called a dangerous and blinding support of President Trump left him with no choice.

"It's like being in a room full of people in here, trying to teach, and no one is listening," he said. "The vast majority seemed to hang on to what seemed like hate, and fear, and almost warmongering, and I don't want to associate myself with warmongers."

Bundy's sudden exit marks a defining moment in the so-called "patriot movement," one his family helped bolster over the past four years. Members of militia groups would talk about being part of the Bundy standoffs as a point of pride, a sort of street cred for militia.

While Bundy said he supports many of Trump's policies and is grateful for his presidential pardon of the ranchers at the center of the 2016 standoff in Oregon, he disagrees with his depiction of immigrants at the border and his approach to governing.

"I believe President Trump, the best way I could explain it, is that he's a nationalist, and a nationalist in my view makes the decision that best benefits the nation, not the individual," Bundy said. "That is not freedom, and that is not what America was built upon."

Protesters gather for rancher Cliven Bundy near Bunkerville, Nevada, in April 2014.
Jim Urquhart / Reuters
Protesters gather for rancher Cliven Bundy near Bunkerville, Nevada, in April 2014.

For those who have followed the Bundy clan and their clashes with the federal government, the 43-year-old's defense of immigrants was not a complete surprise, even if it was to his supporters.

His father, Cliven Bundy, has previously defended immigrants from Mexico and Central America, citing their desire to provide for their families as a human right — an opinion echoed by Ammon Bundy in his videos. Both men have said they believe migrants have a legal right to apply for asylum in the US, and that it is lawmakers' duty to give them that opportunity.

And although the family has generated a mishmash of support from militias, conspiracists, sovereign citizens, right-wing politicians, and critics of federal public lands, the Bundys' ideology has always stemmed from their specific brand of Mormonism, emphasizing personal freedom, empathy toward the prosecuted, and conflict with the government.

"Fear is the opposite of faith, faith is the opposite of fear, and we have been asked by God to help, to be welcoming, to assist strangers, to not vex them," he said in his video. "As we do that, the Lord is going to bless us and bless them."

Religion has always played a central role in the Bundy family's ideology, Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow and an expert on right-wing extremism for the Anti-Defamation League told BuzzFeed News.

"Although [the Bundys'] views are not orthodox, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is pretty welcoming to refugees," he said.

Yet many of Bundy's supporters are not members of the Mormon church, and their views on immigration are more closely aligned with President Trump's hardline stance.

"[Bundy's] followers come from several places in the right, but they are almost all from the far-right," Pitcavage said. "There are very few parts of the far-right that are welcoming toward immigrants. They tend to be nativist or xenophobic."

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said far-right groups, including alt-right and militia gatherings, have begun to show divisions and fractures since the 2016 election.

Ammon Bundy (left) meets with Harney County Sheriff David Ward near Burns, Oregon, in January 2016.
Jim Urquhart / Reuters
Ammon Bundy (left) meets with Harney County Sheriff David Ward near Burns, Oregon, in January 2016.

Many involved in the groups were united in opposition to the Obama administration, then to Hillary Clinton's campaign, and later in support of President Trump. But Trump's victory has left the groups without a target, and individual issues and topics have once again begun to split some of their followers.

"Once it changed from an insurgency into something else, once the left was thrown out of the hold of government, the expectations for the far-right changed," Levin said.

It's unlikely Bundy's decision to exit will further splinter militia groups, Pitcavage said, but the so-called patriot movement — which has for years pegged itself as an anti-establishment collective aimed at curbing government abuses — finds itself in a difficult position at the moment.

"The militia movement has been in this weird space, unlike anything it's experienced in its previous history because someone they supported is the head of government," he said.

The unequivocal support for the president by his followers was a big concern, Bundy said, and a factor in his decision to step away from the movement.

"Those on the right have been so fanatically loyal to him that any word of opposition to bring out light in what he might be doing that is incorrect draws hate," Bundy said.

He then took it a step further, comparing the support of Trump's base to that of Adolf Hitler's.

"The time we find ourselves in now that is closest found in history is Germany in the 1930s, and they had a leader that was loved, and it was the same kind of following," he said. "I don't want to say there is that extreme similarity, but it very well could go that way, and people just give up their thinking, their rights, and they give up their government because they were so willing to follow him."

Other militia leaders who had previously rallied to Bundy's side have called him in recent days to privately offer support and protection, he said, after his family received threats over the Facebook video. Some, Bundy said, told him they agreed with his views critical of Trump but did not want to air their opinions publicly for fear of facing a similar backlash.

For now, Bundy doesn't want to be associated with the militia movement and said he was considering writing a book about his experience.

"I think they have their leader," he said. "I think, you know, President Trump is clearly their leader, and I think wherever he tells them to go, they'll go."
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sa ... nt-now-hes
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
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Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
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