The Oregon Standoff: A Community Divided

[snooper2]

VICE

Published on Jan 11, 2016
Members of an anti-government militia have occupied the headquarters of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in a remote region of eastern Oregon for over a week, protesting what they claim is an overreaching federal government. The occupation is being led by Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan, two sons of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher best known for an armed standoff with the federal government in 2014 over a cattle grazing dispute.

The protest was sparked by the re-sentencing of two Oregon ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven, to five years in a federal prison for deliberately starting fires on their property that spread to the bordering Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

While the media has referred to the situation as an armed standoff, more specifically, the "Oregon Standoff," the federal authorities have kept their distance, and the local authorities, led by Harney County Sheriff David Ward, are also treading lightly.

VICE News traveled to Harney County, Oregon to meet with militia leaders, attend town hall meetings, and speak with local ranchers whom the protesters claim to be representing.

[phantom power]

1. I always wonder, why they bother flying the American flag.

They don't appear to believe in a federal government. The highest authority they claim to recognize is "county sheriff" (and really, only sheriffs that happen to agree with them).

What they believe in is some kind of neo-feudalism. A thousand individual counties, each governed by some kind of warlord that they refer to as an "elected sheriff."

[Gregorian]

2. Hey, that's a bright observation!

[2naSalit]

3. Been wondering about that for

some time. Some of these perps live in my area and I see evidence of this crap often and I think about it every time I cast my vote in an election.

[L. Coyote]

5. They have their shadow government organized. Exec Comm w/ Republican Co. Chair rules the militia.

Ammon Bundy is their webmaster!

[L. Coyote]

4. Now that the whole country is aware of #WelfareRanching we can raise grazing fees, finally.

This is so going to backfire on the grubby land grabbers, and I hope the political blowback includes Big Oil paying fair prices for their public land extractions too.

The want it all for free, they will end up paying market value instead after national awareness of all the #MillionaireWelfare going on out West.

The Larger, but Quieter Than Bundy, Push to Take Over Federal Land http://nyti.ms/1OVObHv #ProtectOurPublicLands #OregonStandOff #Koch #AFP

[center]

[Quixote1818]

6. Everyone hates the Government until they leave and the sewers stop working and no one picks up the

trash.

[flamingdem]

7. The community is not divided, they want them to leave nt