Oregon Wildlife Refuge Occupiers Rifle Through Native American Artifacts

[KamaAina]

http://gawker.com/oregon-wildlife-refuge-occupiers-ransack-native-america-1754179614

A video uploaded to Facebook on Wednesday appears to show the armed militants occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge rummaging through a storage area, accusing the Bureau of Land Management of improperly storing artifacts belonging to the local, native Paiute tribe. “SHARE!” the video is captioned. “BREAKING UPDATE BURNS OREGON BLM LEFT NATIVE ARTIFACTS TO ROT IN MICE DROPPINGS!”...

“I understand they took a bulldozer and built a line around the refuge headquarters,” Roderique told Indian Country Today. “You can’t go and bulldoze things. I don’t know what these people are doing if they are doing things to just get a rise or to be martyr—all they are doing is making enemies out of the people they professed to support.”...

Incidentally, in 2014, members of the Bundy clan driving ATVs through the Recapture Canyon, in southern Utah, to protest its closure to motorized vehicles, ended up trampling Ancestral Puebloan artifacts and dwellings.

“Damage to archaeological sites is permanent and the information about our collective past is then lost forever,” Jerry Spangler, director of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance, told the Salt Lake Tribune at the time. “It is sad that irreplaceable treasures of importance to all Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of anti-government fervor. It is worse that protesters would be so blinded to their own insensitivity as to what others consider to be sacred treasures of their past.”

[msongs]

1. this behavior is approved of by our fine federal government for some reason nt

[roguevalley]

10. there are severe penalties for this sort of thing. I don't get this at all

Sorry, Aunt Nell. They're fucking up your town and heritage. RIP, sweetie.

[Paladin]

2. Why would anybody predict these assholes would be respectful of such objects?

And how much longer are they going to be allowed to occupy and misuse this region, with no apparent consequences?

[Wounded Bear]

4. No shit...

they obviously have no respect for anything outside of their own selfish circle of greed and cowardice.

[romanic]

3. So...

why isn't the government getting these morons out already?

[Bad Dog]

5. Destruction of antiquities

Is just something else they've got in common with IS.

[Shandris]

7. Well, that and being allowed free reign so long as the USG is the only oversight.

Odd how many groups are out destroying native stuff, isn't it? Syria, the Temple of Baal at Palmyra, the Arch, Yemen (*choke*), Oregon, Afghanistan, the Museum of History in Iraq that we were so quick to 'save'... Most while being 'defended' by us (or with us 'engaging' those who destroyed it).

Must just be a coincidence. EDIT: GAH! MY SHRUG EMOJI!

Get those ranchers, they don't wants to pay up dem grazin' fees!!

[bkkyosemite]

6. Just talked to Sen Wyden's office. She said they are trying to end it peacefully

I told her with fanatics that will not work. There will come a time when they will have to move. Shut off their electricity and heat. I said what do you think other terrorists think about this. We look like fools. They need to take action.

She said she has gotten many many calls. So I call Merkley too. She said the same.

[dembotoz]

8. watch for the stuff to appear on ebay or antiques roadshow

i must admit it would be grand to see one of them being led off the stage on cuffs from antiques roadshow.....

[Eugene]

9. "...the current culture is the most important." - Ammon Bundy

“We also recognize that the Native Americans had the claim to the land, but they lost that claim,” Bundy said. “There are things to learn from cultures of the past, but the current culture is the most important.”

http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/33958168-75/4000-artifacts-stored-at-oregon-refuge-held-by-armed-group.html.csp

Archaeological treasures will be lost because the Bundy bunch doesn't care.

[phantom power]

11. "they lost that claim" Hey Ammon, it was stolen from them. By assholes a lot like you.

[Johonny]

12. The current culture states that this area is a wild life reserve

just like it states his father should pay fees to graze on federal land, so much for his argument...

[Retrograde]

13. Has the Sec. of the Interior said or done anything yet?

It's BLM land, it's Native American artifacts - I'd think that would be in her balliwick.