Dispatch from Cliven Bundy's latest gathering
Who showed up at the one-year anniversary of the BLM standoff? Most of them weren't ranchers.
Tay Wiles April 14, 2015
... By last Friday, a rag-tag collection of militia, Constitutionalists, Patriots and other Bundyites from as far away as Florida and Oregon had camped themselves on the side of the highway that leads to the Bundy Ranch in Clark County. A large “Info” sign hung on a trailer parked beside a table of schedules, “We Made a Difference at Bundy Ranch” t-shirts and “Bye Bye BLM” stickers. A couple of organizers shuffled about, answering questions and greeting the occasional arrival. An event was brewing.
The three-day “liberty celebration,” as the Bundys call it on their Facebook page and in emails, didn’t draw the estimated 300-plus supporters that descended last April when BLM-contractors began rounding up Bundy cattle from unpermitted federal rangeland. But over 100 supporters showed up to mark the anniversary of the tentative victory over the feds; Bundy has yet to be charged for grazing his cattle illegally on federal land on and off for decades, nor have his armed defenders been taken to account for aiming weapons at federal agents ...
The one-year anniversary event was, on the surface, a celebration of ranchers standing up not only to the government, but also to the other forces that conspire to wipe out this traditional livelihood. But there weren’t many ranchers in attendance. Really, it was the one-year birthday of a rekindled anti-federal government movement, one that is gaining strength Westwide. Over three days of milling in the sagebrush expanse between tourist-town Mesquite to the north and Las Vegas to the south, I met ex-cops, ex-firefighters, ex-military, a real estate agent, roofer, tattoo artist, general contractor, mom-turned Constitutionalist activist, retired San Diego fisherman, and others. Some of Bundy’s fellow livestock producers did in fact show up—and maybe more would have, had the county fair and rodeo down the road not have been the same weekend—but the demographics were telling.
When I broached the subject of Bundy with former bull rider and current Clark County commissioner Tom Collins, over the phone, he said “(Bundy's) not real popular except with wing-nuts and gun nuts." Collins is good friends with the Bundys and says they’re generous contributors to the local community, but he doesn’t support the rancher’s beliefs that the federal government has no place in Clark County or anywhere else ...
http://www.hcn.org/articles/who-showed-up-at-the-bundy-standoff-anniversary-not-ranchers
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