2016 Jan 28^th

The occupation of some federal land in Oregon by a couple of dozen out-of-state ranchers who wanted to send a message is nearly at an end. The message, one hopes, has been duly noted by other ranchers and amateur seditionists as well, and it is, “Don’t do that!” Much of this saga was an exercise in stupidity from the very beginning. These ranchers were there to protest federal land policy, particularly those of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which sets the policy by which federal lands can be used for cattle grazing, logging and other purposes. These ranchers seemed to believe that they had a right to use the federal land adjacent to their ranches just as they pleas

ed. One of the group, named Clevon Bundy, some two years ago just refused to pay grazing fees that had been in arears for some time. The result was that now his sons and some like-minded friends decided to go up to Oregon and occupy an empty building in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge 30 miles from the town of Burns, Oregon, as a protest.

All of the occupiers had guns, and they also had some women and children with them. They moved into the temporarily abandoned government buildings at the Refuge and settled in for an extended stay. No one seemed to care; they were out in the middle of nowhere, but that changed. A number of them regularly went into the town of Burns for supplies. The presence of heavily armed strangers coming into a tiny town of three thousand was unnerving to the inhabitants and the citizens began to complain about it. The occupiers must have thought that these rural folks would be nothing but sympathetic. Some were, but most just wanted these armed strangers gone. Eventually the Oregon state government took notice and finally the federal government as well. The FBI was on its way. (Many people believed that if heavily armed black people had occupied a federal building in Chicago the government would not have been so forbearing.)  

Two large SUV s left the compound and when they were well away the federal agents stopped them. The occupants of one surrendered peacefully enough but the driver of the other vehicle took off at high speed right into a well manned road block where the fleeing vehicle got stuck in the snow. Here is where the tale gets to “he said, she said.” One of these ranchers named La Voy Finicum had proclaimed that he had joined this group prepared to die and that he would not be taken alive. He carried a .45 in a waistband and when he emerged from the car he reached into that waistband and was instantly shot dead by the FBI people trying to arrest him. The people in the car at the time have a different story, but then Finicum was the only casualty and given what he had said about not being taken alive, his death isn’t that surprising. There are still half a dozen or so occupiers left at the refuge. They are trying to bargain with the FBI hoping that if they do leave they will not be arrested. No immediate word about how this negotiation is going.

An interesting sidebar here: Finicum, the rancher, had been providing “foster care” for about 50 boys over the years. That was his primary source of income; it wasn’t from ranching it was from the state government for providing foster care for boys. The boys were also available to help with ranch chores. Isn’t that wild… Finicum a government hater feeding at his state government trough.