Joe,
All highly relevant points. The only thing I can disagree with you on is the
spelling in one word in the title of
the book, because you made a typographical error.
Also, there are actually two books:
The first one is:
My Disillusionment in Russia
by Emma Goldman
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-my-disillusionment-in-russia
and the second one is:
My Further Disillusionment in Russia
by Emma Goldman
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-my-further-disillusionment-in-russia
Both of these links lead to a site where one can read the books online, copy
the text, or get a free PDF file
for download.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-my-disillusionment-in-russia.lt.pdf
For justice and peace,
Sylvie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe harcz Comcast" <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 5:47 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
Those are facts documented Sylvie.
Not to mention the sadness at the demise of democratic principles and basics
of fair play by so-called Communists or Marxist-Lenists governments in our
experience.
This is why I urge Roger to read, "My Dillusionment with Russia" by Emma
Goldman. ForStalinwasn't the only problem that destroyed in fact the soviet
revolution as most Trotskyites suggest. In fact the seeds of tyranny and in
fact anti-revolution were firmly planted early on by Lenin.
Kronstadt was a water shed moment amonst others.
But, I date myself with this trivia now almost a century old.
For there are like in every movement, and at the risk of total
contradictions here, good and well meaning folk of all camps including
Marxist-Leninists. It is a conundrum for sure.
That said you Sylvie again has some very valid observations when we take the
actual history of avowed Marxist-Leninist governments in to account.
I will go one small step further here. I will say outright that most of them
and most especially the former Soviet model and the rat bastard Maoists
perverted the notion of socialism to such a degree that they set the world
and, mostly America back by their perverted example by a century of
reaction.
----- Original Message -----
From: "S. Kashdan" <skashdan@xxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2016 10:06 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
Hi all,
Roger said: "Marx set down a goal. That goal is the minimization of man's
power over
man and the maximization of man's power over nature."
Sadly, none of the so-called communist governments have achieved either of
these goals. They maximized the power of small elites over the majority of
those living in their territories to at least as great a degree as the
non-communist governments. And, they proved to be great devastators of the
environment, polluting the air, water, soil, etc. to at least as great a
degree as the non-communist governments.
For justice and peace,
Sylvie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2016 5:53 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
Of course Marx did not have the archaeological and anthropological data
that is available today, but with the accumulation of that data he was
very largely vindicated. Engels made a lot more mistakes. If you read
The Role Of Labor In the Transformation From Ape To Man you will see
that he actually fell for that nineteenth century version of New Age
philosophy. Without naming it he makes reference to Lemuria, the sunken
continent between Africa and India. Pointing out the mistakes that Marx
and Engels made and the limited information that was available to them
completely misses the whole point of what they were trying to do though.
Despite Miriam's constant claims of Marxist rigidity and leaving no room
for bending Marx would have been appalled at the suggestion that he was
advocating any such thing. Again, Marxism is the scientific view of
history and economics. To call that unbending and rigid shows a complete
failure to understand what science even is. In science we must observe
the actual world as it really is and learn new things about it. When new
things are learned we have to adjust our theories to accommodate it.
Marx set down a goal. That goal is the minimization of man's power over
man and the maximization of man's power over nature. He then set down a
means by which to achieve it, scientific method. He also made as best of
an effort as he could to apply that method in his lifetime and in most
cases, like his economic analysis, he has been shown to have been right
over and over. In other cases, especially relating to what could be
known to him from anthropological and archaeological data, he made
mistakes. The mistakes may have been in the particulars, but on the
whole his analyses have been born out. But picking out something like
his not knowing about some specific item of technology that the Aztecs
may have had strikes me as obscurantism. It is like saying that Bohr got
his entire atomic theory wrong because he didn't know about quarks.
On 3/10/2016 7:36 AM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
Yes, the trouble with e-mail threads.Complicated things get diffused
in to a few comments.
But, Marx certainly did not have the wealth of archeological and other
findings we have today. In fact he had really very little and for the
most part, though not always was quite European centric. That is not a
knock, but a fact.
That said he did have quite a bit for the times at his disposal of
wwhat was available at the London Library.
Still the prevailing views of indiginious peoples were either that
they were savages/barbarians or they were idealized as Rosseuan "noble
savages". Things were much more complex than that.
In the so-called "New World" pre-Columbian even by European standards
if applied objectively many cultures were, in many aspects even more
advanced than their conquerors. For, example the population center in
what is now Mexico City was greater than any city in Spain and most in
Europe. Water systems were as advanced as the ancient Romans with full
running water. Agricultural techniques were far more sophisticated and
superior to those in Span. Those are a few examples. Oh and structures
were quitesophisticated. The Mayans had far superior mathamatics and
astronomy. On the other hand both cultures didengage in religious
human sacrifice....Oops the Spaniards were pretty brutal too. Anyway
you get my point.
That is all I'm saying.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2016 9:44 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
I don't know that your statement that Marx thought it was all linear
development is accurate. Marx was well aware of uneven development.
In fact, he pointed to slavery in the new world while capitalism was
in full swing as an example of uneven development. What he did see,
though, was that history progresses through patterns. It is not just
a collection of random events. And in those patterns you can see when
one economic system transforms into another and you can observe how
it does so and so you can draw lessons from those observations.
On 3/5/2016 8:38 AM, joe harcz Comcast wrote:
Again, I'm talking about the notion of land as property. Also here
you Miriam are pointing to a post Columbian culture for there were
no horses prior to the Spanish bringing them here.
You do have points however that there warring peoples at play here.
That is true. And they had clashes between different cultures even
pre-Columbus.
But Roger is most correct in his fundamental point that in North
American cultures, except for the Aztec and Mayan the land was
"owned in common" amongst the peoples and the wealth derived was
shared or used in common.
It is very complicated however, to put rigid notions down on all of
this "combined and uneven" development.
For things didn't happen in a linear development as Marx seemed to
suggest. Simply, it was much more complicated than that though Marx
did have some very valuable contributions he wrote at a time were
much of this was not known.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Miriam Vieni"
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 10:41 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
It was my understanding that the American Indian tribes considered
themselves to be nations. They fought each other for a reason. The
aggressor
nation started a fight with another nation in order to take what it
had. So
it wasn't individuals owning things. It was a whole group owning
stuff and
wanting the stuff that the other group owned. I don't care what
terms one
uses. I don't care if you use a word other than own. And I don't
care if
what they wanted was land or horses or hides or women. Or maybe
they were
fighting just for the fun of it? But they did take some of the
members of
the vanquished tribe as slaves. The slaves belonged to the winners.
Miriam
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2016 9:04 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum
was flat
murdered'
Remember that
no one claimed that primitive communism was ever practiced outside
the
community. And also remember that American Indians were not practicing
primitive communism at the time of the European invasion and had
not been
practicing it for many thousands of years at least. With that said,
it is
true that certain communities did control certain territories and
if you
insist that it be called ownership then you can call it ownership
even if
the members of the land controlling community may not have
understood the
concept of ownership. However, if the territory was own it was
owned by the
community as a whole and it was exploited through the labor of the
community
for the benefit of the community. That is, it was the means of
production
and when the means of production is owned commonly and worked
commonly by
everyone in the community then even though you, as a member of a
capitalist
society, feel compelled to assign ownership to someone, even if the
someone
is a collective, it is effectively not property at all.
On 3/3/2016 11:17 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
The anthropologists studied people in many parts of the world, but"owned"
that was after our own native peoples had been ethnically cleansed so
what we have are the stories of the American Indians themselves, and
their lives as observed by their conquerers. I gather that a tribe
owned a vast swathe of land through which it moved through the
seasons. Buut then they invaded each other's territories.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz
Comcast
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 10:00 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
Land as property was not a concept among North American Indians until
long after Columbus.
It does not mean however that they were "primatives" for lands were
highly cultivated and even forest lands were managed. But they were
so-to-speak in common, not by individual land holders, and for thecivilizations.
common good.
Now again I'm talking about North American cultures. There are
differences in some of the Mezo=-American (Aztecs, Mayans) and Inca
than one century.
By the way before Columbus there were cities and cultures more
advanced and more populated than in Europe at the time. In fact there
were one hundred million native americans before Columbus. But guns
and germs and steal destroyed about 98 percent of that population
in less
limit of language.
98 million people! The holocaust was astounding.
have to scoot but there are some excellent books on this history and
they are "objective" too.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 9:48 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
But in some, people did own things and they used them as tokens of
wealth or power. Sometimes it was cows or shells. Some groups had
elaborite systems for evaluating wealth. I studied all of this stuff
in college so I can't remember all the details but there was great
variation in cultures.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of joe harcz
Comcast
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2016 7:09 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
Again correct for the most part for these were for lack of better
words mutualist/communal societies.
Also in many indigenous societies there were no real notions of
private property including ownership of land itself.
It wasn't even a concept this private ownership of property that is.
Itwas indeed owned by all in common.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for
DMARC)"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 10:11 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum was
flat murdered'
If you are not using the word class in the same way that I am then
you are talking about a different subject and using the same
word to
talk about a different subject to someone who is talking about one
subject at the same time that you are talking about a different
subject is a recipe for a failure to communicate. Anyway, a
classless society does not deny the existence of leaders or even
bullies. What makes preclass societies classless is that all
members
of the community participate in labor and the labor is conducted
for
the collective good of the community. It would be a stretch of the
definition of exploitation, but if there is any exploitation of
labor then it is a mutual exploitation. One feature of the
Australian social system before the European colonization is the
lack of clear lines in regard to where one community ended and
another began. In most cases of preclass societies the limit was
the
equally.of pattern was seen.Even in nearby New Guinea there were and still are hundreds of
languages in a very small area. These languages were unintelligible
to each other and effectively made a barrier that defined the
community. There are a lot of indications that prior to ancient
imperialist conquests the proliferation of languages was similar
over the entire planet. Of course, the necessity of common origins
of humanity means that even prior to that there must have been only
a few or even one universal language. The linguistic
distribution in
Australia was a bit different, though, and may well be closer to
what the situation was prior to the extreme proliferation of
mutually unintelligible languages. In one area the people spoke in
the same way while just a few miles away some of the words were
different and inflections were slightly different, but there was no
problem in understanding each other. The neighbors were considered
part of the community and aided each other. A few miles further
along the people spoke a little bit more different from the first
group and less different from the second group and to the second
group were no more difficult to understand than the first group and
so were treated as just as much of the community as the first
group.
The first group would have noticed more profound differences in
their speech, but would have had not much trouble understanding
them
while having less contact with them. Then just a few miles even
further away the same kind
Once you got about half way across the continent the peoplehave been considered to be of different nationalities. Nevertheless,
would be
speaking so different from the first group that they would not be
able to understand each other at all and so they would effectively
be speaking another language. But would it really be a different
language since each adjacent group would be able to understand one
another perfectly well? On the rare occasions that people from one
side of the continent interacted with one another they would have
considered each other to have been different communities and in the
modern world would
each adjacent group considered itself to be one community. They just
lived in slightly different areas.
What this led to was that effectively the whole continent waswas mutually beneficial too.
cooperating with each other for mutual benefit with no coercion and
no coordinating government. The whole continent was living in
anarchy, the same kind of anarchy that the anarchists advocate. It
functioned because the people of one locale saw each other as
friends and neighbors and realized that mutual cooperation with the
people around oneself was beneficial to oneself and the others too.
They also had every reason to understand that cooperating with the
people over the hill
That is, they had mutual interests and few conflicting interests.
Then the Europeans showed up and started deporting their criminals
into the continent and insisting that the natives adopt the
European
culture or else and that kind of messed everything up.
On 3/2/2016 9:28 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I don't know anything about the social organization and culture of
the indigenous population of Australia. But I do know how little
children behave in a play area. Some kids are more aggressive than
others. Some take toys from others. Some push others out of the
way
in order to be first going down the slide. I suspect that those
folks in Australia had a power structure with some being the
leaders or the elites or whatever, even if that meant that they
were the ones who decided how the food would be divided up or how
tasks would be allotted. I'm not using the word, "class", in the
precise manner that you are. But I am saying that in any group of
people, you'll end up with some individuals who are more dominant,
who are leaders in one way or another. The power is never
distributed
murdered'variety.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2016 8:36 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum
was flat murdered'
If you claim that the main barrier to a classless society is human
nature then you will have to explain all of the classless and
stateless societies that have existed. About the only way I can
see
that you can do that is to exclude them from being humans. To pick
out just one example, I would expect that all of the people who
are
descended from the residents of Australia before the European
colonization might rather object to such a characterization.
On 3/2/2016 10:59 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
I think the main barrier to a classless society is human nature,anarchist.
not the stae. But other than that, I suppose I could call myself
an
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 10:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: 'The truth will come out: Finicum
was flat murdered'
Anarchism and socialism are very similar. I have explained on
this
list before that anarchists and communists have pretty much the
same goal.
Anarchists just call that goal anarchy and communists call it
communism.
Both tendencies are for the eventual abolition of the state. The
main difference is that the anarchists see the biggest
obstacle to
that eventual goal to be the state itself. They have the idea
that
class society is caused by the existence of the state and that if
the state were abolished then class society would go away.
Lenin's
book, State and Revolution, was mainly a polemic against the
anarchists. He argued that their stance that a classless society
could be attained by the abolition of the state would not work
because those who had an interest in the state's continued
existence would just reestablish it on the instant that it was
abolished. I will counterpose scientific socialism to anarchism
now because even though I said that socialism and anarchism are
very similar it is more accurate to point out that anarchists
have
always been considered to be socialists, just not of the
scientific
something in common.Scientific socialists hold that class society causes the state,will gradually transform from a means of administering people into
that the state is a way of regulating and administering class
relationships and that if class society is abolished then the
objective conditions for the continued existence of the state
will
have been removed and the state will fade away. That is, it
a means of administering things.
By the way, it is important to remember that anarchists call
themselves libertarians. They were calling themselves
libertarians
a long time before the right wing libertarians started calling
themselves libertarians. That is why I cringe whenever the word
libertarian is used on this list as if right-wing libertarian was
the only kind of libertarian. Insofar as they advocate the
abolition of the state or its minimization, though, the
right-wing
libertarians and the left-wing libertarians, the anarchists, have
The main difference between those two camps is that the left-wingtalking about and that Chuck does not know enough about it himself
libertarians are in favor of the abolition of capitalism and
class
society in general and the right-wing libertarians are for the
elimination of the state, but have no problem with capitalism and
with class society in general. Still, though, there are a whole
lot of complete misconceptions at large about what anarchism is
and, unfortunately, that is true among a lot of people who
falsely
call themselves anarchists. That is probably why Chuck says that
all the anarchists he knows seem so selfish. The point is that
the
people he knows who call themselves anarchists probably do not
know what they are
to recognize that.
On 3/1/2016 9:57 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:Re:
Emma Goldman was an anarchist. There's a book about her on BARD
and one on Bookshare. I haven't gotten through much but she
sounds very close to being a socialist.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger
Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2016 9:21 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy]
[blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy]
Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
anarchist.Bakunin ...anarchy.
My comment about bringing on the anarchy was intended as a
sarcastic response to your elevation of property over justice
for
human beings and the then disparaging indication that otherwise
you would have
But, actually, I wonder if you have really ever known an
anarchist.
Most of the people I have known who call themselves
anarchists do
not know what they are talking about. I remember one who was a
singer in a punk band who called himself an anarchist and I
asked
him which anarchist tradition he adhered to. He didn't seem to
know what I meant so I offered some suggestions, Kropotkin,
Proudhon,
who?
He then said that he was not an old anarchist, he was a new
selfishness.politics.anarchist.Then he threw around some words like death and destruction. Ivote for Bill Clinton.
just shut up having satisfied myself that he did not have the
slightest idea what an anarchist was. Then there was the woman
who claimed to be an anarchist and when I tried to explain to
her
where I thought anarchist politics went wrong she also seemed to
not know what I was talking about and then went on to tell me
about how important it was to
The list goes on. There have been a few, though, who did adhere
to traditional anarchist collectivism. I worked with a man in
the
anti-draft movement who was well grounded in anarchist politics
and history. At a later time I got peripherally involved in the
defense of a high school student who was expelled from school
for
being an
I had some conversations with her and while I found her a bit
naive she was definitely learning about and following anarchist
what anarchism is.Later she sued the school board and even though I was not
present
in the courtroom I caught a report on television and was
surprised that my old comrade in the anti-draft movement
testified as a friend of the court and as an expert on
anarchism.
He turned out to be a university professor by then. Since you
describe the anarchists you have known as selfish people I
suspect that they were of the variety who claim to be anarchists
but do not understand
And if you take their claims of being anarchists as good coin Ifact, anarchist philosophy is completely incompatible with
suspect that you don't know much about it either. I do happen to
have some very strong reservations about anarchism, especially
the position about abolishing the state by decree and the theory
that capitalism is a manifestation of the state rather than the
state being a manifestation of capitalism or some other class
system, but it is undeniable that many anarchists have dedicated
themselves to anarchist collectivism as both a revolutionary
goal
and as a way of life. That is far from selfishness. In
out:On 3/1/2016 12:54 PM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman
for
DMARC) wrote:
what has anarchy ever done for people? The anarchists that I
know of are extremely self-serving and operate out of a very
narrow perspective, their own!
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 5:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy]
Re: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] 'The truth will
come
ranchers participated.2006.Finicum was flat murdered'
Property before people? How capitalist. Bring on the anarchy.
On 2/23/2016 6:38 AM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender ckrugman
for
DMARC) wrote:
the real issue here is how one chooses to fight for injustice.
When one crosses certain boundaries such as property lines
there are potential consequences. We live in a society where
anarchy does not rule.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 8:31 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Re:
[blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat
murdered'
And what does one risk when one chooses to not fight back
against injustice?
On 2/19/2016 9:26 PM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender
ckrugman
for
DMARC) wrote:
when one chooses to live as an outlaw and adopt the ways of
the wild west taking over property that doesn't belong to
them
they run the risk of being killed or murderedd if one chooses
to use the melodramatic rflare.
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted
sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2016 6:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] 'The truth will come out: Finicum
was flat murdered'
http://themilitant.com/2016/8007/800755.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 7 February 22, 2016
'The truth will come out: Finicum was flat murdered'
BY SETH GALINSKY
Working people should denounce the cold-blooded Jan. 26
killing of Robert "LaVoy" Finicum by Oregon State Police and
the FBI; the frame-up conspiracy charges against Ammon Bundy
and others who took part in the occupation of the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge; and the frame-up of Dwight and
Steven Hammond, two Harney County, Oregon, cattle ranchers,
imprisoned for a second time on the same bogus arson charges
dating back to 2001 and
corner,"weapons," it reports.agitators.farmers.cops."The truth will come out. LaVoy was just flat murdered," Tad
Houpt, the owner of a small logging company, said by phone
Feb. 7.
Finicum and Bundy were traveling to a Jan. 26 community
meeting that Houpt helped organize in John Day, Oregon, when
they were intercepted by the
Bundy initiated the refuge occupation Jan. 2 to draw
attention
both to the frame-up of the Hammonds and to U.S. government
land policies that have been undermining the livelihood of
ranchers and
up.ranch.The persecution of the Hammonds outraged small ranchers and
farmers throughout the West - controlled burns are common to
control invasive plants and to prevent the spread of
wildfires.
Despite serving the sentence imposed by the trial judge, the
Hammonds went back to jail Jan. 4, because of a U.S. Appeals
Court ruling that their sentences didn't meet federal minimum
rules.
After the trial the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
vindictively revoked the Hammonds' grazing permits,
threatening the survival of their
Meanwhile, the Oregonian reported Feb. 6 that the scanty
official information and one grainy video released on the
killing confirm many aspects of the accounts by Shawna Cox
and
Victoria Sharp - who were in the pickup truck driven by
Finicum.
According to both of them, the cops first fired one shot at
the vehicle they were in after Finicum initially pulled over.
Finicum then shouted out to the cops, "I'm going to see the
sheriff," a reference to Sheriff Glenn Palmer of Grant
County,
who was also scheduled to be at the John Day meeting and has
been quoted in the press as saying the Hammonds should be
freed.
Finicum tried to drive away, but was soon forced off the road
again.
The
Oregonian reports that the FBI admits lethal force was used
when the truck "approached the checkpoint," that is, even
before the vehicle crashed into the snow bank and Finicum
gets
out with his hands
Much of the capitalist press justifies the killing and
prosecutions by labeling Finicum and Bundy as extremists and
outside
land policies."To his detractors," the New York Times said, "he was a
doctrinaire leader of an illegal protest that is deeply
opposed by many who live near the refuge." The paper
conveniently leaves out that most people in the area support
the demand to free the Hammonds and are sympathetic to their
opposition to the government
Many local residents visited the refuge, met Finicum and
Bundy
or donated food and supplies to the occupiers.
Some 1,000 people attended Finicum's funeral in Kanab,
Utah, Feb .
5.
While pretending to be objective, the Times' description of
the scene plays on many of its readers' prejudices. After the
service there were "cowboys on horseback and members of
so-called patriot groups wearing camouflage and carrying
small
The Times did quote one rancher from Nevada, Diana Clark, at
the funeral. "All of us ranchers feel like we're backed
into a
she said. "And it's hard to get anyone to acknowledge our
needs, and so they gave us a platform."
At least 22 smaller protests against the killing of Finicum
took place Feb. 6, from Florida to Washington. One common
placard was "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," a slogan first
popularized by protesters against police brutality after the
killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. At
events in John Day and Prineville, Oregon, dozens of local
firearms.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have now indicted 16
supporters
of the occupation with conspiracy to "prevent by force,
intimidation and threats, officers and employees of the
United
States Fish and Wildlife Service . from discharging the
duties
of their office" at the wildlife refuge.
The list of what the indictment calls "overt acts" to further
the conspiracy is proof itself that the prosecution is a
frame-up.
The first "act" it lists is an Oct. 5 meeting where Ammon
Bundy warned Harney County Sheriff David Ward that if the
Hammonds went to jail there could be "extreme civil unrest."
Although the occupiers are not accused of pointing their
weapons at anyone, the indictment claims that they
"brandished
and carried firearms." Oregon law allows the open carrying of
97720.discussion.Bundy released a statement from prison Feb. 6, noting that
the
occupation was civil disobedience. He encouraged those "who
disagree with my speech" or dislike his ideas to engage in
civil
"If you do not advocate for government to tolerate ideas that
it hates, then the First Amendment and free speech mean
nothing,"
he said. "Arm yourself with ideas. . Argue and disagree.
Be free."
Supporters of the Hammonds continue to organize. A new online
petition calling on President Barack Obama to free the
Hammonds had
3,341 signatures as of Feb. 9. The Oregon Cattlemen's
Association is asking that donations be sent to: The Hammond
Family, c/o Sandra Carlon at US Bank, 493 N. Broadway, Burns,
Oregon
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