Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher and scofflaw, was hailed by some people as a folk hero and patriot recently when he—and his followers–engaged in a standoff with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Caty Enders (Esquire) described the scene in Bunkerville, Nevada, as pundits and politicians descended on the Bundy camp last week “to throw in their American flag hats with the BLM protestors.” She said that a FOX News van had been parked by the side of the road for days—and that “militia snipers kept a trained watch” up on a ridge “as Bundy held court.” She added that disciples of Bundy came from far and wide “to share their personal theories as to why the government was enforcing a court order.”
Bundy has had a number of advocates who have spoken in support of his militant stance against the BLM. Those advocates included some prominent politicians and members of the media. Sean Hannity was one of Bundy’s biggest boosters and helped to make him into a folk hero. Hannity talked with Bundy on a number of occasions on his Fox News show. Joan Walsh (Salon) asked a pertinent question about Bundy on Friday: “How does a guy who declared early on ‘I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing’ become a folk hero in the first place?” She said that both Hannity and Fox News should have realized that the Nevada rancher was “too toxic” prior to his “ongoing self-exposure as a racist.” She added that the extremism of Bundy’s statement about the US government “should have been warning enough that Bundy was not only crazy but dangerous…”
Enders posed a question that was in the same vein as Walsh’s: “Exactly how difficult was it, though, to determine pretty early on that Bundy and his followers were using the threat of force to back up some terrifyingly misguided beliefs?” Enders provided some insight into the thinking and beliefs of Bundy and disciples of his with whom she talked.
Members of the Bundy Brigade Speak Out
Enders spoke to a militia member named Mark who was affiliated with the Oath Keepers group. Mark explained to her “the truth behind public land management.” He said, “The assumption is that the BLM is part of the federal government. But we need to check the facts on that one. The BLM doesn’t work for the government: they work for the United Nations. They might as well be wearing blue helmets. If we find out there’s money being exchanged between Harry Reid and the Chinese government, no one should be surprised.”
Another Bundy disciple told Enders that “Bar-certified lawyers, like the ones who prosecuted Bundy, have sworn loyalty to the British government, whose statutes encourage sex with clients. ‘That’s what they do with all their clients.’”
Enders spent time talking to a former cop who chuckled as he related a story about one of his buddies who once worked as a sheriff in New Mexico. He said his buddy got into some trouble after he pulled over a group of illegals one night. He said his pal “didn’t have room to haul ‘em all, so he put a chain around their neck and put a padlock through it, went to the next one, then he chained ‘em to a tree!” Enders said that the former cop then buckled with laughter as he told her how his friend “left ‘em and went to town to get his pickup to haul ‘em all back in. So, you might imagine, that didn’t play well — ha! You’re a young’un, but everything wasn’t against the law, way back when.” The former cop also told Enders that it was now being proved that the Bureau of Land management was acting on orders “from Troy and Harry Reid, who want to build a solar farm on the land — or a wind farm.”
One of Bundy’s disciples drove a beige sedan covered with the following message:
IF YOU WERE BORN IN 1980 AND AFTER. YOU MAY BE IMPLANTED WITH A GOVERNMENT MICROCHIP WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE: GOOGLE DOCTORS THAT REMOVE MICROCHIPS.
Cliven Bundy, God’s Messenger
During the time that Enders spent at the Bundy camp, she witnessed one of the public addresses the Nevada rancher made to his followers. She said that as Bundy—who had just been given a standing ovation—took the stage, he didn’t seem pleased. She said that Bundy reproached the crowd “for failing to follow the word of God – to the letter …”— which he claimed was being “delivered through him.” He wasn’t happy that his supporters failed “to follow his instructions to tear down the toll booths at Lake Mead and disarm the Park Service.” Bundy added, “The message I gave to you all was a revelation that I received. And yet not one of you can seem to even quote it.” He continued, “The records of our bible — how long have they been kept? Thousands of years. They’ve been turned over generation after generation, buried, and all kinds of things happen to ‘em. And yet, here, something I felt was inspired [by God] and yet we haven’t even carried it forth for even a couple of days. Shame on us.”
Bundy expressed frustration because his followers hadn’t been able to deter the BLM “within an hour”—“as the revelation had prophesied.” When an hour had passed, Bundy reportedly got into his bulldozer and decided to march on the BLM himself. His dozer got stuck in the mud—and that led to Bundy’s receiving yet another revelation: “It come to my mind real plain — the good Lord said, ‘Bundy, it’s not your job, it’s THEIR job.’” Bundy reiterated that revelation a little differently in an effort to ensure that his followers understood what he had just told them, “This is not my job, it’s YOUR job.”
Bundy said that he received a message that morning after he prayed. He claimed that he heard a voice say, “Sheriff Gillespie, your work is not done. Every sheriff across the United States, take the guns away from the United States bureaucrats.”
Uncivil Disobedience
Even The Weekly Standard–as well as Glenn Beck–has been critical of Cliven Bundy. The magazine’s Scrapbook explained the whole Bundy situation with regard to grazing fees and court rulings. The Scrapbook said that what had transpired over the years didn’t sound “like the dread hand of tyranny, in Nevada or Washington, oppressing an innocent farmer, or pushing some law-abiding citizen around.” It said it sounded, instead, “like a rancher gaming the system to his own financial advantage, and disguising his scheme in populist rhetoric: refusing to pay a tax which others must pay, and ‘tying up the courts’—for two decades!—as he continues to ignore the law.”
The Weekly Standard:
Far from acting in an arbitrary or capricious manner, the federal government has shown patience and forbearance in the face of lawlessness that customarily lands people in jail. It is worth noting that Bundy’s rancher-neighbors and the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association, who contend with the same federal policies, offer him little support.
Apocalypse Cow – Welfare Rancher, Part 1 (The Daily Show)
Apocalypse Cow – Welfare Rancher, Part 2 (The Daily Show)
SOURCES
Fox News’ new laughingstock: Cliven Bundy — and Stephen Colbert — will destroy Sean Hannity (Salon)
Uncivil Disobedience (The Weekly Standard)
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
Nick,
Was there really any need to post that? Let’s all try and honor the professors request and be civil. What’s so hard to understand?
“Frothing” Lol!!!
Gene Howington
“Scott,
Mea culpa. I was thinking Mercury”
Yes, Gene, I have seen what years under a hot light will do to a face….
But you know, the dark side of Mercury is really cold!
Lol! I do have the ability to limit the number of questions I ANSWER. And, in case you obsessive question askers haven’t noticed, many of you are on quotas. Some of the people who have repeated, inane, questions are currently shutoff from my answering. This probably won’t help them w/ their question asking skills, but it will at least limit the clutter.
Nick Spinelli”
“Lol! I do have the ability to limit the number of questions I ANSWER. And, in case you obsessive question askers haven’t noticed, many of you are on quotas. Some of the people who have repeated, inane, questions are currently shutoff from my answering. This probably won’t help them w/ their question asking skills, but it will at least limit the clutter”.
LOL, The obese Emperor with no clothes on has shown up again.
anonymously posted
Did you catch Palin’s “Waterboarding Baptism” speech at the same event?
It was a total horror, but offered one comfort. After that speech she can NEVER run for president.
Monday, Apr 28, 2014 11:44 AM EST
Fox News’ pathetic last stand: Cliven Bundy, Wayne LaPierre and the liberal media
Wayne LaPierre wanted to defend Cliven Bundy and cheer the NRA crowd to revolution. He couldn’t. Sanity prevails
by Heather Digby Parton
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/fox_news_pathetic_last_stand_cliven_bundy_wayne_lapierre_and_the_liberal_media/
Excerpt:
But Wayne LaPierre is nothing if not a professional. He knew he had to please this crowd and so he dug into his bag of rhetorical tricks and came up with a truly evergreen theme: the hated liberal media. He went on a tear we haven’t seen the likes of since Newt Gingrich blamed the liberal media elites for the Columbine massacre back in 1999. LaPierre took a page from Newt’s tattered Little Red State Book and thundered:
“Rather than expose government dishonesty and scandal, the media elites whitewash it all…Move on, they tell us, there’s nothing to see here … One of America’s greatest threats is a national news media that fails to provide a level playing field in this country for the truth.”
“We will never submit or surrender to the national media, I promise you that. They still call themselves journalists. They’ve never been honest about the NRA. They hate us just for saying out loud and sticking up for what we believe in our hearts. They try to ridicule us into oblivion or shame us into submission. But their moral indignation should be directed right into their own makeup mirrors. The media’s intentional corruption of the truth is an abomination.”
Then he muttered something about Benghazi and the IRS.
The crowd cheered him on, of course. This is LaPierre, after all. But the right wing railing against the liberal media is like Yankee fans railing against the Dodgers. Sure, there’s an old rivalry there from way back when — but it’s pretty stale. The real rivalry is the one it’s always been: Yankees vs. Red Sox. And in this story the Yankees are the gun owners and the Red Sox are the federal government. These guys who dress up in camo costumes and run around the woods pretending to be Navy SEALs on the weekends probably don’t even know what the liberal media is anymore — they only listen to Rush and watch Fox News. Their world is dominated by conservative media everywhere they look. What self-respecting NRA member is watching “The Ed Show” when they’ve got “The Five” beating the wingnut drums in perfect time to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”?
LaPierre probably knew all that, but he had no choice. Once Cliven Bundy’s little white slip fell down around his shit-kickers, all LaPierre had to fall back on were the the ancient sacred texts of the conservative movement.
It’s too bad. I think it might have been a clarifying moment. We had been watching U.S. senators and major right-wing media figures openly admitting their affinity for the militia movement. That’s an important thing for the country to know. Another desultory declaration of war against a liberal media that no longer exists (if it ever did) is just a cheap applause line at this point.
The good news is that the toxic racism of the Bundy kind is now considered so extreme that even those who are sympathetic to armed revolution against the U.S. government don’t want to be publicly associated with it. Believe it or not, that’s progress.
Heather Digby Parton is a writer also well-known as “Digby.” Her political and cultural observations can be found at http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com.
Annie,
Good question / point @ 3:36.
I believe Prof. Turley calls himself a libertarian. And hskiprob calls himself a libertarian.
I believe the distance between them is greater than from here to the sun.
Annie writes:”Just what does “libertarian” mean nowadays anyway? It seems to have been twisted, bent, folded and spindeled beyond recognition”.
The one who hates the civil rights act and would change it so that no person of colour, especially the one with the black hue can eat at the counter of the Woolworth’s of today and other private companies. This is the “Libert-y” part of “libertarian”.
hskiprob writes:
“Teji Malik, I’m not right wing, I’m libertarian, learn the difference”.
Same difference. It matters not what wing your are flying with. It is an ignorant wing who hates knowledge and too insecure to admit when wrong, rather start pointing fingers at others for their own insecurities and frailties.
Is that the reason you love your The Welfare Cowboy who owes money to us? 🙂
Teji Malik, You comments are either untrue or make no sense. There is a great deal of difference between a right wing fascist and a libertarian. There is also a great deal of difference between a left wing socialist and a libertarians, however there is not so much difference though between a left wing socialist and a right wing fascist. The both steal from the majority and use the tax revenue and regulatory fees to redistribute it to their favored social policies which just so happen to generally benefit them personally. Libertarians do not want to steal from the majority at all. We understand that “Political motive is always dangerous because ultimately, despite their exaggerated pleas of altruism, somebody is trying to benefit at the expense of everybody else.”
Just what does “libertarian” mean nowadays anyway? It seems to have been twisted, bent, folded and spindeled beyond recognition.
I will offer this regarding questions, teachers, and students……
Socrates thought it was rather good way to search for the truth.
hskiprob
Teji Malik, I’m not right wing, I’m libertarian, learn the difference.
================
Labels are the final resting place of the final resting place.
Scott Supak (@ssupak)
… I’ve commented on this blog from time to time over the years, but was never personally attacked like I have been from Nick.
===============
Nick is a software multi-personality.
They are working out the bugs.
Be fair, give them a chance … and do not interact with any version that ends is zero (1.0, 2.0, 3.0 …. etc.) …
Next episode … we expose the puppetrons …
Nick Spinelli
When my daughter was young she was very inquisitive and asked many questions.
…
============================
“When kids hit 1 year old, it’s like hanging out with a miniature drunk. You have to hold onto them. They bump into things. They laugh and cry. They urinate. They vomit.” – Johnny Depp
When they grow up …
Glad you’re staying, maybe you need to get deloused before you enter back in to the brawl.
Mr Keebler,
I didn’t mean to imply that I was leaving. (Groans heard all around.) I just thought we had settled the disability question. (Participants nod in relief.)
Sadly, Mr. Spinelli is not done with me yet. (Participants commence defenestration.)
hskiprob: Nice right wing babble with no substance as usual. You talk about the so called oligarchs but you are fine with The Welfare Cowboy. Your comments are nothing but ignorant, hateful that are laced with total hypocricy!
What a shame!
Teji Malik, I’m not right wing, I’m libertarian, learn the difference.
Raff,
Apparently we have some setting up rules, then again, they only apply to them. I don’t see anyone jumping on that rah, rah wagon.
Charlton,
Hypocrisy ruminates all day.
Annie,
Thank you, I missed that because I don’t always read some posts by some posters.
raff,
Don’t you just love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning?