gattsuru:

kontextmaschine:

This is a startlingly historical and philosophical backgrounder to the Malheur occupation and I approve.

That’s surprisingly good for the LATimes – I’m surprised anyone in their offices has ever heard of the Homestead Act. 

It’s kinda interesting to see where they make small mistakes despite that, though.  The modern descendents of the Sagebrush jackasses, Finicum’s branch included, along with even the 1980s variants,  are at least self-aware enough to realize that they’ll lose out from privatization, and thus primarily advocate for state possession where they’ll have more ‘pull’ (and established philosophy).  There’s no such thing as “Oregon Public Radio”, and the original quote from “Oregon Public Broadcasting” said only that fostering was his ‘primary’ source of income and explicitly said he’d make ends meet without, rather than the only way to keep the ranch afloat.  Ending the timeline in the 1970s with the FLPMA rather than the Endangered Species Act is… at best misleading.

Which is kinda disappointing.  It’s not exactly hard to tear down these folk at the legal, philosophical, or historical levels.  But apparently it’s too tempting to make them Cartoonishly Evil, rather than just wrong.

Good points, also he could have stood to mention how often lands were opened under pressure from protests or unauthorized settlement, against the wishes of wise planners in Washington - the Preemption Act, the Boomers of Oklahoma, the settler militias that started Indian Removal on their own. (Or in London, with the American Revolution inland of the coasts experienced as a reaction to the Proclamation of 1763.)

Also Bady’s not on staff, he’s a hotshot socialist editor of The New Inquiry. That such a traditionally provincial and rightist paper would run someone like him is pretty striking in its own right.