"I’m an Oregon rancher. Here’s what you don’t understand about the Bundy standoff."

[lamp_shade]

From the Washington Post yesterday -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/08/im-an-oregon-rancher-heres-what-you-dont-understand-about-the-bundy-standoff/?postshare=5461452339977912&tid=ss_tw

The piece is just a whinefest and I only read a few paragraphs, then jumped to the comments:
Nearly all are smack-downs of the writer. Some are brilliant. This one stood out...

Terry Reed
5:29 AM EST
Keith, from what I can tell, your main complaint is not about the land that you own and control, but about the federal land that you don't own and control. Apparently, you seem to have a sense of entitlement that is beyond comprehension to the rest of the non-ranching population, even going so far as to call the government regulation of government land "aggressive," a "siege." and demanding "autonomy" over government land. In effect, your arrogant* complaint is that the government and not you or your fellow ranchers has the final word about what happens on federal land. The rest of the country would be sympathetic if your complaint was that the feds are controlling your land, but it's not your land is it? You even complain about the inconvenience of having to lobby the feds at the hint of and change in regulations about federal land, saying that they are, "regulating us out of business." Do I have to say the obvious, that "federal land" IS NOT your business? Also, assuming for a moment, that you are truly a conscientious and environmentally responsible rancher, does that mean that the rest of the ranchers are too? It's not your land, you don't have the final say, you will never have the final say. Get over it, and stop whining. By the way, what would be your reaction if your neighbor set his cattle loose on your land, and with armed men took over one of your buildings while demanding "autonomy" to do what they want with your land? You ranchers need to wake-up and smell the coffee.

[Chemisse]

1. Excellent response.

I have been incredulous over this whole situation for exactly that reason!

[L. Coyote]

34. Living in the past mixed with delusions, it seems to me.

Some of that delusional mix results astroturfing by corporate resource grabbers. The Big Oil frackers manipulate the small share holders. Their numbers and viewpoint matter when state/local decisions are on the line and they get whipped into frenzies by false equivalencies and economic fears.

[flamingdem]

43. Sounds plausible, I wish there was an article to read

detailing these processes. I might have a tad more sympathy in that case.

[L. Coyote]

47. This goes way back. Remember Reagan's Secretary of the Interior?

Drill, Baby, Drill is an old anthem in the never-ending battle to transfer public wealth to private hands.

http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/08/bundy-militia-oregon-standoff/

[mdbl]

2. Do they know that most movie Westerns are fiction?

Because it seems they are pretending to be in one.

[alfredo]

4. Yep, and the rancher wants to take over the farmer's land.

[DhhD]

8. And they were not able to find gold or claim jump someone that had. So they and their next

generation move on to moan about a cattle heard in a desert that cannot handle cows where the water is mineralized and acidic. If they could take over ownership of the federal lands with shut down mines, they could start mining there again. They must be picking up gem stones to fund their cattle operation front. Look at all the creators and butts and Ghost Towns in the Federal Reserves. Uranium is worth more than gold.

[alfredo]

50. I think they'd just turn around and sell it to some mining company.

They'd then move to Northern California and open a coffee shop.

[niyad]

18. but, they should be friends:

[alfredo]

52. As long as they don't go messing with the wimmen folk.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Actually many, many of the best Westerns are about the range wars and conflicts between

ranchers and farmers. This sort of thing has been going on for years and it is a large part of why grazing rights on public lands exist in the first place.

[jwirr]

14. But those wars were between two different types of land

owners. This is an outright denial that We the People own the land they think they can take over. Grazing rights were put into place to allow those ranchers to be subsidized as long as they obeyed the regulations.

Grazing rights are a subsidy to cattle farmers just like the subsidies to oil and coal companies.


They need to stop whining.

[L. Coyote]

11. Hell, they don't know their own history is fiction!

[WinkyDink]

3. Any article, post, or comment that begins "you don't understand" gets my hackles up. EOS.

[Hortensis]

5. I appreciate their contributio n to our diet.

It's only appropriate that they have proper appreciation for our allowing them the use of our land for their business.

BTW, thank you all for the many times we followed some lonely track to its end and camped. The lack of "keep out" signs in OUR wilderness was always tremendously appreciated.

[Roy Rolling]

13. Not me

Beef protein is one of the most resource-consuming foods on the planet, provides questionable benefit because of the enormous detriments. Not to mention ridiculously unregulated, dangerous, and unspeakably cruel.

I disagree with ranchers' demands, and disagree more with their damaging and wasteful industry.

[navarth]

20. +1 nt

[Jim Beard]

44. Cattle keep the grass but they have the tendency to shit in the streams

[Squinch]

6. Really? Do you think writers who say that are saying you, personally, are dim?

Because otherwise I don't see why it would bother you.

I'm not a rancher. I assume there are things about this that I don't understand that a rancher does.

[timdog44]

49. I agree with you.

When they say that, they are saying there are things they don't want you to know about that. It is usually the start of lies or, the start of a whine session. I live in farm country and hear the same from the farmers. Until I went with them and followed them around. What you don't understand is the really small amount of real work done. Hard work when it is done, but not much of it. And I am talking about single crop farmers, not the farmers who grow people food. The other farmers grow gasoline.
There was always the story. You can tell when a farmer baby is born, he is the one you don't have to spank to make them cry.

[tooeyeten]

9. Entitlement

Like the Kochs, "listen to me me me me, do what I say".

Btw are any of those joker burglars from OR? Blue Tarp man isn't, neither or the Bundy's. and did you hear about the guy who collected donations for the cause, stand-off? He spent on all the dough on "snacks"- the alcoholic kind!

[emulatorloo]

27. Arizona and Nevada and Utah

[tooeyeten]

31. See

Not an Oregonian in the bunch, phonies.

[Jim Beard]

45. I have heard the Kochs are huge supporters of these people because of Federal oil and gas leases

[alfredo]

53. States can't afford to protect the land, and will eventually have to sell it off to the Kocks or

other rape and pillagers.

[JohnnyRingo]

10. The ranchers don't want to just use the land...

They want to claim squatters rights. As I recall, Bundy didn't just graze his cattle on the government land, he fenced "his share" off so the herd wouldn't wander away.

I'm in the midwest so the equivalent would be a trucking company fencing off part of the adjacent post office parking to store their trucks, complete with "no trespassing" signs.

[L. Coyote]

12. The equivalent would be grazing your cows in any corn field you want and telling the owner to FO

with a loaded gun in your hand, oh, and with an armed motorcycle gang backing you up.

[passiveporcupine]

23. I haven't found anything on him fencing BLM land, but

Under Bureau of Land Management permits first issued in 1954, Bundy grazed his cattle legally and paid his grazing fees on the Bunkerville Allotment until 1993. In that year, as a protest, Bundy did not pay to renew his permit, and it was canceled in 1994.[27] Though the agency made several attempts to have Bundy renew the permit, the rancher declared that he no longer recognized the BLM's authority to regulate his grazing and he asserted that he had "vested rights" to graze cattle on the land

Bundy has said he does not recognize federal police power over land that he believes belongs to the "sovereign state of Nevada".[31][32] Bundy also denied the jurisdiction of the federal court system over Nevada land and filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the Bureau of Land Management case against him by claiming the federal courts have no jurisdiction because he is a "citizen of Nevada, not the territory of Nevada".[32] Bundy also believes that federally owned land in Nevada actually belongs to the state.[33][34] According to The Guardian, Bundy told his supporters that "We definitely don't recognize [the BLM director's] jurisdiction or authority, his arresting power or policing power in any way," and in interviews he used the language of the sovereign citizen movement, thereby gaining the support of members of the Oath Keepers, the White Mountain Militia and the Praetorian Guard militias.[35] The movement is considered by the FBI as the nation’s top domestic terrorism threat

From wiki.

He's a sovereign citizen nutbag.

I wonder if he believes all federal/national parks need to give their land back to the states to give away to the citizenry to do what they will with it. Geeze Louize, where do these cranks come from?

[Bayard]

15. Disgraceful

Considering most federal land used to and/or still is Native American land that the BLM manages, these people are squatters already. I don't know that in this case, but its a pretty good bet. I think that's Paiute land. For many years, the government has leased grazing land to cattle ranchers for pennies. They turn around and want to kill off wild mustangs there because they're "taking grass away from their cattle on their land", or kill wolves claiming huge predation.

Read any number of books on the subject, and how the Natives never see any of the money.

[renate]

19. well said, and welcome to DU!

[EndElectoral]

16. If a group of black men took over the refuge over the nation's racial problems, the Natl. Guard

would by there with loads of automatic weapons by now, and Republicans would be screaming about the situation.

[phantom power]

17. Tough shit for them. The federal govt is already giving them land to use at pennies on the dollar.

But that's not enough for them. They want it for themselves, for free. Fuck them and their priviledged whining.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

35. Best post in the thread!

I'd just add one word: hypocritical.

"Fuck them and their privileged, hypocritical whining.

You know these selfish pricks harshly criticize others getting anything, legally and without guns, from the government. I'll bet they absolutely despise welfare recipients, those on disability, etc.

[libodem]

21. That government land

Belongs to us all as the public. They want to own it for themselves and deny everyone else the condional permission for land use. They would over graze it into the ground and kill all the wildlife like it had no right to exist.

Leave our pubic lands alone. Leave our wilderness alone and fuck you, you selfish pig, landgrabber, crybaby.

[cheapdate]

38. Word!

[The Jungle 1]

22. Just an observation.

I do not agree one single bit with what the Bundy thugs and their yahoo buddies are doing. It is not their land it is my countries land. They rent it and need to follow the rules. Bundy senior needs to pay his rent or get the hell off!
Wonder what he would say if I showed up with a truck load of sheep to graze on that land. If the Bundy thugs don't agree with the BLM and the rules then they should work with in the system to obtain change. Why do so many in the west believe they have special status in our country?

There is one area that ranchers have a real issue yet I have heard nothing about it. Mustangs. Wild Mustangs are presently overpopulated in the west and are destroying range land. Remember horses are a nonnative species.

What happens is the horses over graze an area then the BLM closes the area to all grazing. Attempts are being made to reduce the Mustangs however they are so far a failure. The herd continues to grow. Culling the herd has not been tried because of what would be outrage from some. Me I do not see how we can turn the entire west over to wild horses. Come up with a control method or cull the horses.

Presently in the northeast we are over run with geese. Communities and land owners pay to have them chased away. They are not culled just chased away to your neighbors property. Your neighbor then pays to chase them back to your property. Great racket for the guy with the dogs. We are also overrun with deer, black bears, and coyotes. The south is overrun with wild pigs.

I guess what I am saying is that across the country our wildlife control systems are failing. This situation is going to become acute in just a few years.

[Submariner]

25. Remember horses are a nonnative species - Actually they are very native to North America

the non-native label is terminology the government uses relative to so-called "wildlife management".

They evolved on the NA continent a couple of million years ago, only to disappear during the last ice age. The horses introduced by the Spaniards in the 1500s is essentially the same genus. The wild horses started off here, and they belong here.

http://www.livescience.com/9589-surprising-history-america-wild-horses.html

The real problem is human over-population straining our natural resources. Cattle are a huge waste of resources and energy per pound of meat found in our supermarkets. And you are correct that the problems will become acute soon, because the population keeps growing.

[The Jungle 1]

39. ?

I guess I am not sure how to respond to your post.
A couple of million years ago a subspecies of horses ran around north America.
Well, Ok I guess.
Plus there are to many humans.
So which are you proposing we reduce? Horses or humans?

I am trying not to be a troll but you kinda make it hard. You do seem to accept that our wildlife management systems are a failure and that is good. Now we just have to get the rest of the nation to understand. Yo something has to change. Although acquiring food could become very easy in a few years.

Presently on most days I could easily walk out of work and grab a goose by the neck an have dinner for the family. Would that be wrong?

[justiceischeap]

54. My observation on your observation

We, meaning humans, have invaded the habitats of many wild animals, which is why there is an overpopulation of many of them. We tear down wooded areas, areas that usually house black bears, deer and coyotes, and then we, humans, complain about them coming into our "habitat." We then dump trash in what was once their habitat and some of these "invasive" species (not humans, of course) then feed on that trash in what used to be their habitat, thriving instead of letting nature take its course had we, humans, not invaded their habitat.

Maybe, instead we need to think about culling the invasive human species (no, I'm not calling for extermination like many do for wild animals), what I'm suggesting is that we figure out a way to live in smaller spaces, so we don't destroy so much of the habitat of wild animals... thus cutting down on the need to complain about their "invasive" existence.

[The Jungle 1]

56. Good stuff

Your ideas hold merit. If we could go smaller that would help but I don't see how. The entire east coast is packed. We are what we are and there is just to many of us.

I am not sure what direction we should take with all these critters but the next 20 years should be interesting.

There must have been 300 geese on the pond at work today. They are not all that much bother and their poop is not hazardous like human poop. Just messy.

[qwlauren35]

24. I found the article very informative.

Apparently many ranchers MUST lease land from the US to stay in business, and the regulations that the US applies often cause difficulties. Especially painful would be a fight that requires a day-time public hearing instead of a night-time town hall type meeting where the government really wants to hear what the people have to say.

My family is part of a retirement community that keeps its collective ear to the ground about upcoming legislation and is quick to demand hearings about anything that isn't favorable to them. Sounds like the ranchers need a lobby.

I agree with the rancher. Taking over a building with armed weapons is WRONG. But I would not have objected to simple civil disobedience to call attention to a problem.

[Blanks]

28. They have contracts with the federal government...

Just like any contract, the terms can be renegotiated at the end of the contract. Nobody is making them renew if they don't like the terms.

The real problem with the logic of all of these ranchers is that in their minds it is the fault of the federal government that they can't make any money ranching and they point to government regulations as the problem.

They have the same problem that all of the rest of us have: it's an antitrust issue.

You can only sell your cattle to the 'cattle buying corporation'. There's no competition in the marketplace, so the cattle buyers set the price that they're going to pay.

I've seen article after article assailing the federal government for how unfair they are being. Where's the complaining about the fixed price for their cattle? They just gloss over that part of it, but that's where the solution to this lies.

[handmade34]

29. the information you came away with

is very subjective... yes, possibly some ranchers are struggling, but so are people of many other occupations... this letter in the Washington Post is one man's personal complaint that we the taxpayers aren't providing him enough help to make his business work... and he doesn't have enough respect for nature and the area's wildlife to see the sense in restrictions... this man is not who you should be getting your information from...

this is one response from a reader of the letter...

I do understand the issues, and particularly the desire to hold on to a way of life and livelihood that has been handed down for generations. Yet, just because one's family has done a particular form of work for generations is not a guarantee that that form of work or lifestyle will continue to be viable forever. Many industries have fallen by the wayside as technology or ecological issues have forced change, and no one is guaranteed a particular job forever. We did not continue to support buggy makers as an industry when the automobile made that industry obsolete other than as a very small niche market for wealthy people who now engage in buggy racing. Digital printing technology overtook the huge metal die print production industry. Changes had to be made in the industries of fabric production once it was understood what the chemicals being used caused in terms of the health of the workers, and on and on. I understand the frustration of thinking that the concerns over a particular species, or plant, or waterway, etc are someone being directed to personally destroy an individual (or industry)- yet those issues often must take precedence when one looks at the overall impact to the environment as a whole. You feel constrained by rules, yet without those rules, whole areas of the ecosystem could be destroyed. And that does impact just a "patch of land", but can impact the entire world. We are all in a time of great change, and we are all being forced to make some changes we may not like. But if we do not, it is not just your personal livelihood or family heritage that suffers, but the fate of the entire planet.

[phantom power]

33. Median annual income is $53K. Lots of people struggle.

Lots of people struggle, including people who'd be fucking shot for attempting the armed hissy-fit these yahoos are indulging in.

[JDPriestly]

42. The ranchers already have large amounts of land and large herds.

They are privileged to be able to enjoy living in a healthy environment. The federal government owns and takes care of a lot of land that is in the mountains, in the deserts, not very habitable.

We city folks rely on having that land to visit when we want to. Much of it, as I said before, has only limited agricultural value.

These ranchers should come and try living in small, rented apartments in the city. They should try getting city jobs, working 40 hours and more in an office or a store, taking home a barely living wage and dealing with a boss. They would be so happy to get back to their ranches and paying to use government land. They have a good life. They are just ungrateful.

Nobody is forcing them to farm on their ranches. No one forces them to keep up their herds and their ranches.

They have chosen their lifestyle because they know it is a good one. Now they want to take from the rest of Americans.

What a bunch of narcissists.

[PatrickforO]

26. That was great.

These people are idiots who have lost sight of the fact that public lands are owned by ALL OF US and have to be managed to give the best benefit to the most people possible.

Having some ranchers just go in and take over sure as hell isn't in my best interest at all.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

36. Not to mention, the politicians these types seem to support would be very happy if all public

lands were sold so someone could make a financial profit. They seem to hold nothing above making money.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

30. I love this post from the comments section:

Mixed Message
1/8/2016 11:48 AM CST

Welcome to being a grownup. We'd all like to do our dream job and have taxpayers provide us the resources to do it. You're an entitled whiner who thinks you're owed something because you're white and wear a cowboy hat. Millions of people have lost jobs as conditions and technology change. If you can't cut it find a job where you can.

[phantom power]

32. +1,000,000

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

37. If only the idiots in question would read such comments and take them to heart.

Of course, they would first have to have hearts...

[padruig]

40. it is worth noting ...

it is worth noting that the State of Oregon sold off nearly all its land holdings

compare to Washington State, land is divided four ways, State, Federal, Timber interests and private ownership

the parcel of land owned by the two farmers who have returned to jail to serve the balance of their required sentence, is surrounded by the wildlife preserve

[artislife]

41. It is almost enough for me to give up beef.

I have been toying with the idea of going vegan because of the environmental destruction the meat and dairy industry does to this planet.


They are helping me nudge along, even though I love a good steak poivre.

[Jim Beard]

46. I have been off beef for a long time but now I have new teeth

and it didn't take long to get my fill of beef and chicken. I have more of a craving for vegetables, dried beans, or anything other than meat.

[Thunderbeast]

48. Ranchers are frustrated with BLM'S responsiveness

Oregon ranchers depend on leased grazing land for their livelihood. Obtaining these leases has become difficult in recent years due to under-funding at the Bureau of Land Management. Grazing rights depend on land surveys to assess the impact of cattle on land and riparian areas near streams. This assessment takes manpower that the agencies don't have due to budget cuts over the decades. Grazing fees don't cover these costs. Most ranchers are responsible stewards of lands, both public and private. We should not paint them all with the same brush as the Hammonds and the Bundys.

Rural economies depend on access to range and timber resources. Recent decades have seen an appropriate awareness of values beyond resource extraction. These communities are making a transition to new land management practices that leave a smaller footprint. It is painful for many, just as disruption in manufacturing has left the rust belt a different place.

We still need food, timber, and minerals that the federal lands provide. We must be transparent about the subsidies that are given to these industries, and decide if it results in sound public policy.

The next battle will be east of Malheur if the President sets aside the Owyhee Canyonlands as a national monument. The same issues will be addressed in heated debate.

[underpants]

51. This whole leads with blaming Obama. Their gripes go back YEARS

and, as usual, they are ignoring the corporate influence on the situation.

Great response.

[Dawson Leery]

55. These militia nuts want free land from the government.

They should never be allowed such.