img116 Albino Cormorant Nestling | by Jon. D. Anderson

Albino Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrorax auritus) nestling, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by Jon. D. Anderson, 16 May 1972

Jess Housty: Cormorant

In the morning:

I will slide your tea into your hands
and your hands into my hands
as the sun awakens clumsily
like a cormorant in the moments
before flight.

ii.

In the tender morning, my dearest,
my dear, in the hushed morning:

your cheek is soft as a cormorant’s breast.

Jess Housty: Cormorant, via Coast, 11 June 2013

Double-Crested Cormorant - Explore #28 4-9-11 | by goingslo

Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrorax auritus): photo by Linda Tanner, 8 April 2011

Double-crested Cormorant | by USFWS Malheur

Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrorax auritus), Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Known to nest in the Refuge. Common in Spring, Summer and fall. (Known to be present, but not every year).: photo by Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 3 May 2006

Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrorax auritus), Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Harney County, Oregon: photo by naderkhoury, 2 May 2014

Stand with our Paiute relatives: Jess Housty, Coast, 7 January 2016

Recently, I was contacted by a Heiltsuk member living in Oregon for a response to the crisis on Paiute lands. It doesn’t take much digging to familiarize yourself with the conflict: An armed white militia is occupying a federal wildlife sanctuary to protest the US federal government’s “tyranny” and issue a call to arms to “patriots” everywhere.

There are many layers to unpack, but one is not yet getting the attention it deserves.

Let’s start with this question: Who is the victim of land theft here?

The area being occupied by this white militia is sacred to the Paiute people. Paiute leadership has made clear statements that the militia is desecrating their ancestral lands. This is where Paiute people gather medicines, hold ceremony, and live their identity as people who are inseparable from the lands where their people have lived for thousands of years.

Greater Sandhill Crane, Green House Lane, Near Burns, Oregon: photo by Alan D. Wilson, early June 2008

Tell me how this armed standoff, at its heart, is not an issue of colonialism.

Too many people are responding to the Bundy militia by tagging them with joke names or just ignoring the issue because they think it’s unimportant. If you think this is humorous or irrelevant, I can only assume you’ve never suffered the grief of displacement and land theft.

One criticism I keep seeing is that Bundy and his followers benefit from the very federal government they’re protesting in the form of federal loan guarantees. People can’t get enough of the irony. Frankly, I don’t care about that. Let’s talk about how they're also benefitting from colonialism, white supremacy, and the deep pain of Indigenous peoples whose lands were stolen from them by the US federal government.

Migrating bird at Malheur Wetlands: image via Coast, 7 January 2016

To all my Indigenous brothers and sisters, and everyone who purports to stand with us:

The absolute least you could do right now is lift up the voices of Paiute people and recognize that ignoring or undermining the seriousness of this issue is totally antithetical behaviour in anyone who claims to care about Indigenous sovereignty or to practice allyship to Indigenous people and causes.

Bundy, the militia’s leader, is preaching to the Paiute about oppression and co-opting their concerns to spin media for his standoff. How can people stand by while a white militia not only fails to acknowledge how they benefit from a society that oppresses Indigenous people -– but also desecrates Indigenous land and appropriates the messages of Paiute leadership to bolster their own support?

Oregon militia man on his gelding named Hellboy greets reporters: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

I can tell you right now, if someone did this in Heiltsuk homelands, I’d be the first one lining up to deliver them a big, fat reality check.

This issue is simple. In the words of 11 year old Ashlin Begay, quoted in The Guardian yesterday, “If people are giving away land here, they should give it to us,” she said. “It’s ours. It’s always been ours.”

Stop letting Bundy and everyone like him get away with their oppressive tactics. Lift up the voices of the Paiute people who are tied to this land in every aspect of their being.

This Heiltsuk is standing with our Paiute relatives. I hope you are too.

Jess Housty: Rise and Resist! Stand with the Paiute: photo via Coast, 7 January 2016

"If it goes back to anybody it needs to go back to the Burns Paiute tribe" #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

they mean to convey that Nature has no value

Birders And Businesses Fret Over Oregon's Malheur Refuge #MalheurWildlifeRefuge: image via KPLU Public Radio @KPLU, 7 January 2016

We stand with Linda Sue Beck and all scientists who protect our lands. #Oregonstandoff: image via Western Priorities @WstrnPriorities, 12 January 2016

Steens Mountains and Malheur Wetlands: photo by Alan D. Wilson, early June 2008

#Oregonstandoff Update. Took a break from aiming our guns at these Fed Agents. Flirting with these ladies. #Bundy: image via Tea Party Man @TeaPartyOne, 7 January 2016

waiting for the Miracle Whip Man

FedEx delivery was just made to one of the militants occupying the #MalheurNationalWildlifeRefuge #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 12 January 2016

Some local ranchers have been dropping off real supplies: beef, firewood, hay. Ranchers who provide supplies should lose their BLM permits.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

haters gonna hate

Watch: #OregonStandoff militant throws tantrum about hate mail: image via The Oregonian Verified account @Oregonian, 12 January 2016

Oregon militant throws tantrum about hate mail: Joseph Rose, The Oregonian, 12 January 2016

The self-styled patriots holed up in Burns sent out a plea for snacks and supplies, and America responded.

But many of the care packages landing at the commandeered Malheur Wildlife Refuge headquarters aren't exactly giving aid and comfort to the armed anti-government protesters.

Certainly, sex toys and a bag of gelatin ... ahem, male body parts weren't what they had in mind. (People: They sent out their wish list, which included the immediate need for French vanilla creamer, Miracle Whip and Menthol 100s.)

Flabbergasted that many of his fellow citizens aren't busy cleaning their rifles, keeping their powder dry and praying the cause, Jon "Daddy Swore an Oath" Ritzheimer took to Facebook to register his displeasure at "an abundance of the hate mail."

"Rather than going out and doing good, they just spend all their money on hate and hate and hate, and hate," Ritzheimer, wearing his signature purple-tinted sunglasses on his shaved head, laments in a video.

He then angrily clears the table of the piled-up boxes containing sarcastic gifts and messages of ridicule directed at the armed occupiers. (This guy must be a real joy when he's losing at Monopoly.)

After the brief display of aggression, Ritzheimer looks at the camera and declares: "We'll continue to do work and do good for our country."

For the rest of "you patriots out there, still twiddling your thumbs, debating whether or not you want to come out," Ritzheimer passes on this message" "Now's the time, if you want to be part of history in the making."

Hey, buddy, at least the government mail moving on government roads is still arriving on time in the frozen outback of eastern Oregon.

Here Come The Oath Keepers!

Man says he's speaking for Oath Keepers, they're coming to Burns to join pacific patriots network #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 12 January 2016

The Oath Keepers are joining the fray. The most dangerous place in Harney County? That space between the news cameras and the Oath Keepers..: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

Here Come The Idaho 3%! Make sure the equipment's insured!

A man standing guard attempts to push a KOIN 6 News videographer aside after members of the "3% of Idaho" group along with several other organizations arrived at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon: photo by Rick Bowmer/AP, 9 January 2016

Let Each Man Be His Own Judge

Public Announcement - new Superior Court Judges of The Continental UNited States of America, Steven Dean Byfield, and Bruce Doucette: posted by arnierosner, Scanned Retina, 25 May 2015:

On May 25, 2015, at 9:45 AM, Steve Curry <cwheileg@gmail.com> wrote:

It is my honor & privilege to introduce to you our two newest Superior Court Judges, Steven Dean Byfield, and Bruce Doucette.

Both of these fine gentlemen are of the highest integrity & caliber, and I am very pleased to have their participation in reforming and restoring our country back to the People!

In Service, Honor & Integrity!

Steven Duane Curry; Judge

Superior Court of the Continental United States of America

Voila_Capture 2015-05-25_11-56-16_AM.jpg

Voila_Capture 2015-05-25_11-55-58_AM.jpg

What I need out of every freedom loving citizen is to make short barreled rifle and machine guns legal right now

#Oregonstandoff @jjmacnab @JohnLGCBundy militant arrested on weapons charges warns of effort to break out of jail: image via Gargoyle @Patztense, 12 January 2016

the common law grand jury is now going to convene

There's a man wearing a Cal sweatshirt at the Malheur Refuge. Unacceptable. Go bears.: image via JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

I heard this off camera, "We're getting security teams as Marshals." They may try to arrest the sheriff, the AUSA, and the Judge shortly: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

"Judge" Curry is interesting bec he was the sovereign citizen guru at Bundy Ranch who put the LV sheriff, NV governors, and others on trial: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

"We have God on our side, and we're going to kick the crap out of Lucifer." -- Pete Santilli on the upcoming common law trial.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

The people who will be put on trial, the sheriff, the US Attorney, and a local Judge.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

Doucette was appointed as a "judge" by other self-appointed "judges." None of them have any actual legal authority.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

When I say "common law" I'm relying on the sovereign citizen definition, not the actual legal definition.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

"Judge" Doucette is not a real judge, of course.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

The militants will now put officials like Sheriff Ward on trial for treason.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

Big announcement from Malheur. "Judge" Doucette has arrived and the common law grand jury is now going to convene.: tweet by JJ MacNab @jjmacnab 12 January 2016

On the road with the patriots' fence breach convoy

Militants will begin taking down fence today, Finicum says at 11am presser #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

We're going to take down a section of fence and put in a gate. #burnsoregon: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

"Our stand here is very clear there are rules we've placed on government ....": image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

"We will not stop until they are out of prison.": image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff fence convoy. At least 8 vehicles -- and a lot of news following. image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

Right now: #Oregonstandoff occupiers on their way to take down a section of fence and install a gate: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff fence breach convoy has turned off roads into snowy fields: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff has stopped to unload tractor. #fencebreachconvoy: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff fence breach convoy. About 15 trucks now.: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

"Quite a media convoy out here following the militants en route to the fence cutting #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

When trucks near cattle think it's hay time. #Oregonstandoff fence breach convoy.: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff breaches fence between government and private ground: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff opened a 80-foot gap between government and private ground just now using Malheur cat: image via Anna King @AnnaKingN3, 11 January 2016

Armed militants tear down U.S. Fish and Wildlife fence. #Oregonstandoff: image via Thomas Boyd Verified account @thomasboyd, 11 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff: Bundy and militants destroyed a fence at the federal refuge: image via Luke Hammill @lucashammill, 11 January 2016

Can't be sure but I think the militants are driving gov't vehicles with the logos obscured #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

A portion of fence has been cut down #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

Truck and trackhoe used in fence cutting are indeed gov't vehicles #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

The Malheur sign saga continues. "Ranchers unite, Obama pardon Hammonds" written on now-torn tarp #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

Another #MalheurWildifeRefuge sign covered w/ tarp, this one ~5 miles outside of refuge on hwy205 #Oregonstandoff: image via Dave Killen Verified account @killendave, 11 January 2016

Fed up with #malheur militants, @Backcountry_H_A takes down tarp blocking refuge sign: image via Vince Patton @VincePattonPDX, 12 January 2016

Harney County is home to around 7,100 people — and about 100,000 cows.: photo by Jarod Opperman for The New York Times, 6 January 2016

#Oregonstandoff fence breach convoy heads back toward Malheur: image via Thomas Boyd Verified account @thomasboyd, 11 January 2016

4 comments:

tpw13 January 2016 at 06:15
Obama seems as reluctant to go after these morons as he was to charge any of the bankers for all their criminal activity.
STEPHEN RATCLIFFE13 January 2016 at 09:00
Tom,

"Tell me how this armed standoff, at its heart, is not an issue of colonialism."
TC13 January 2016 at 13:02
I like Jess Housty a lot, her poems are quite fine and she's got bigger balls than La Voy Finicum had even on the day when they overinflated everything leathery in Oklahoma.

This is a minute and a half worth of interesting:

Disappointed Patriotic Armed Islamophobe Jon Ritzheimer, Who Had Been Expecting Nothing Less Two Cases of Miracle Whip, Five Gallons of French Vanilla Creamer and Twenty Cartons of Menthol 100s, Discovers He Has Received the Wrong Presents, Throws All His Brand New Sex Toys on the Floor, Making a Terrible Mess for his Mom, er the Federal Government Wildlife Refuge Staff to Clean Up Later -- Not that the Accumulated Stinking Detritus of the Bundy Gang Weren't Already Becoming the Worst Environmental Hazard in The Pacific Northwest, Apart from the Hanford Nuclear Waste Site... and Hanford Had a Head Start

These fake cowboys -- actually a pack of two-bit peckerwood businessmen from out of state -- have claimed all along that the ranchers and townspeople of Harney County were staunchly behind them. But a town meeting at the high school gym in Burns a few nights ago told another story: a lot of terrified small town residents hoping the Massed Weaponry of the Impromptu Retard Army of the Continental UN-ited States doesn't blow up in their faces.

A young girl of about middle school age stood up and said We shouldn't have to feel afraid in our home town.

A local administrative judge stood up and said this circus is costing the County and the town seventy to eighty thousand dollars per day, and he intends to send the Bundy Boys an invoice.

(Not forgetting that Harney County has the lowest percapita income numbers in the state, and a tax base too small to support, say, a heavily armed, mechanized paramilitary mercenary army of its own, which is about what what it would take at this point to dislodge the patriots... or even distract them long enough to keep them from rifling the drawers of the absent wildlife refuge personnel, who are now cowering.... er, working at home, and looking both ways in the dark...)

The rancher whose land borders the Refuge has said he hadn't expected or asked for, and didn't appreciate, the whole fence-breaching comedy.

The spectacle of the fence breach convoy brought back memories of the first Iraq War and the images of the Basra road clogged with the vehicles of fleeing vehicles turned to smoking wreckage by Hellfire missiles.

Last night Obama seemed to be almost overcome by delirium when he announced elatedly that America is still the most powerful country in the world and that no terrorist can or will ever escape its reach.
TC13 January 2016 at 13:26
Meanwhile the trespassers have now tantalizingly shared that in two days they will hold a momentous press conference, once again on sequestered property, which will offer hints and portents as to the impending fate of... what was it again? The "movement"? Or, perhaps, could it be, the entire Continental UNited States, and its heirs and assigns?.

"Although numerous Harney County officials and many Burns residents have condemned the armed occupation led by Arizona rancher Ammon Bundy, militia members have continued to claim that their local support is growing and that they will back out once they can transfer their efforts to Burns residents.

"Bundy and his out-of-state crew say they want the federal government to give local ranchers control of public land in rural Oregon – and that they plan to stay put until they are confident that Burns residents are in a good position to advocate for their land-use rights.

"Jerry DeLemus, a 61-year-old New Hampshire resident who was at the refuge until Monday and has helped Bundy coordinate meetings with nearby ranchers, said the occupation has made significant progress in recent days and could soon be ready to leave.

'“It probably won’t take too long,” said DeLemus, who is also a co-chair for US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s veterans’ coalition in New Hampshire. 'There’s so much local support rallying behind what Ammon and those at the refuge are doing.'”

By "local support," of course, he means vast pilgrim armies of intensely principled, righteously enraged pinheads from Arizona, Idaho and Nevada, armed with bazookas, rocket launchers, and handheld nuclear weapons -- all of course devices to the ownership of which every American citizen should be entitled by the Constitution, for purposes of possessing, aiming and using at will -- who, in this totally Godly, ultra-illuminated Sea-Changed-Constitutional scenario, will henceforth roam the land, doing good, and hating the haters, as Lt. Jon Ritzheimer, once he had calmed down a bit after sweeping the bad gifts off the table, has so sagely prescribed.

But until the bright day when that kind of beautiful freedom becomes an actual reality -- Friday, will it be? -- the patriots will just have to get along on the complimentary salmon steaks and braised chicken and prime cuts of beef and super-size gelatin dildos, keep the free heat turned up nice and toasty, and pray for cable.

TOM CLARK

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

In Whose Hands? (Jess Housty: Cormorant)

Greater Sandhill Crane, Green House Lane, Near Burns, Oregon: photo by Alan D. Wilson, early June 2008

Oregon militant throws tantrum about hate mail: Joseph Rose, The Oregonian, 12 January 2016

4 comments: