Dishing out mining and drilling permits in wilderness areas: What's behind these standoffs?

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The movement has two main channels: foot soldiers like Bundy and the Oath Keepers, who view themselves as the first line of armed resistance against government tyranny, and capitalists, who know that federal land rules are keeping valuable minerals in the ground. Bundy and his ilk have been involved in multiple other lower-profile provocations with federal agents over the past few years across western states. In that same time frame, the CWP has documented dozens of legislative efforts to loosen federal control of public lands, which would ultimately allow state lawmakers to start dishing out mining and drilling permits in wilderness areas that have been preserved by and for American taxpayers for hundreds of years.

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In a final bit of irony, this latest militia dust-up stems from a law created in direct response to the perception that right-wing domestic terrorism was surging during the Clinton years.

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) created the five-year mandatory minimum sentences that the Hammonds face for arson on public property. That law sailed through a Republican Congress in the wake of the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. McVeigh and Nichols were inspired to that murderous act in part by the fatal standoffs between armed resistors and federal agents at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the early 1990s, where multiple people died and law enforcement were blamed for mishandling and escalating the situations. - Thinkprogress.org

Exploitation of natural resources by those who seek short-term profit as their motivation. Damned the long-term repercussions. It's about money.

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1. The folks in these small Pacific Northwest...

Communities are easily manipulated when it comes to jobs.

The problem is that there aren't the kind of 'support' jobs that there were a few decades ago. In the 70's there were saw mills and small logging companies, there was even a train from my home town to a shipping community. Trains were filled with logs, or lumber, wheat, cattle. There were implement sales for farming. There was even a wheat mill.

Now, apparently the large companies that perform the local logging operations on federal lands don't support the local economy, they don't even come to town to buy groceries.

There were a lot of small family farms in the 70's too. They got caught up in the high interest rates during the Reagan administration and found something else to do after they lost the farm.

I have quite a lot of Facebook friends that are under the misguided notion that it would be a good idea if the Feds turned the land over to the states.

I see a whole host of more realistic solutions to their economic travails, but I do not engage because, well... Teh stupid, it burns.

[2naSalit]

2. ^^THIS^^

I live in a NW small town that used to be more of a timber, cattle town at the end of the rail line. It is always feast or famine, it goes in cycles.

Public lands need to be preserved because, more than anything, climate change. Just because it isn't an instant moneymaking venture to have wilderness and wild places doesn't mean they are not vital to the well being of all living things... which includes us.

Unfortunately, many who do live in such communities are trying to meld capitalism with natural resources and expecting the resources to keep up with the corporate model no matter how much manipulation it takes. We can see the consequences when we see how the natural environment has been adversely affected by our manipulation. And the "traditional" minded operators just don their blinders and cry out that they are oppressed because the world has changed and everyone else is trying to get them to see it. And they don't want to because, the stupid.

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3. There are some small businesses...

That use mules or pack horses to take big game hunters back in the deep woods, and there's a small white water rafting industry. Those small businesses support the natural wildlife but the stable work, the saw mill, the folks who supported the loggers (chain saws, trucks, loaders etc), they're just gone.

There isn't enough demand for that kind of recreational tourism to keep the economy going. There are two categories of people from my home town:

1) Moved away, got exposure to the world and tend toward liberal politics.

2) Stayed and are subject to every right wing talking point that comes down the pike.

To a person, everyone falls into one category or the other.

[2naSalit]

4. I would suggest a couple more

or one and a half and that involves the tourism aspect. There are those who are liberal but keep to themselves yet work in more ecofriendly jobs whether they grew up here or are transplants (that would include me but I've been here for decades) and those who come in and want to turn it into another Disney world thing. there's a big National Park here so there's that, but the community still lives and dies by park policy as long as they rely on tourism.

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5. True...

There are some that are quiet liberals, they just try to stay out of it. There are also a few that left, but joined the military - so they are pretty conservative.

For the most part though, the ones with exposure to the world are liberals, and those who have lived a pretty sheltered life are conservative.

[2naSalit]

6. A lot of truth in that. nt