*
I am not aware of any rural population in the post-industrial democracies that
doesn't hold a paranoid weltanschauung among at least some of its members.
The French peasant of today is certain that the wolves did not arrive on foot
from
Italy or Poland. No they were dropped at night by parachute, for the express
purpose
of exterminating rural humans. For good measure cages of vipers were also
dropped
by parachute. Never mind that a truck would be far cheaper and more effective.
I'm
not making this up.
Without fail, massive subsidies to these rural people slow the inevitable
erosion of
the status quo. 40 % of the total payroll in Harney County, OR is government
jobs. I
imagine that many places it is higher still. We see the imminent collapse of
Curry County
as a viable government. The much richer state of Norway has proactively
consolidated
many of its counties this year. 30,000 farmsteads stand empty there, said to
exceed the
number at the end of the Black Plague. This diffuse insecurity is rich hunting
grounds for
a broad spectrum of right-wing movements. Although I hesitate to dignify most
of these
nut-job phenomena with such a term.
Likewise, the national and international coverage of the Malheur
occupation has been
consistently disappointing. Today's writer in the NYT refers to it as "a cowboy
takeover".
Her childhood in eastern Oregon didn't give her the perspective her editors
probably think
she has. This process of economic consolidation and depopulation is such a
universal
phenomenon. I encounter the context in academic articles
and books, but journalism serves us isolated cases one at a time. Are the
writers really naïve
or is it just more entertaining to present it as such? The agenda of the Koch
brothers and
their ilk benefits in the process.
Lars
On Jan 18, 2018, at 12:00 PM, Jason A. Crotty wrote:
I thought this might be of interest:
Fear of the Federal Government in the Ranchlands of Oregon
Two years after the standoff at the Malheur Refuge, many people in the region
remain convinced that their way of life is being trampled.
https://nyti.ms/2Deywit
