The Battle of Athens and the Oregon Ranch take over.....14 minutes....did you even know?
25 minute clip |
25 minute clip
When "Men were Men..." Great clip
You WILL shed a tear of PRIDE....try all you can not to....good luck...
from a comment on youtube..
I had never heard of "The Battle of Athens / Tennessee" till I heard about it on radio.
I as well as others PRAY it never comes to something like this, but, we all must remember -
In Oregon.....citizens protest with VIGOR video above
Freedom is not Free - there has to be a price, we must keep the resolve to remain Free!!!
Thank God for our Veterans.
(CNN)Two days after taking over a federal building, armed protesters in Oregon are refusing to budge until they get what they want.
The problem is, they haven't specified what it would take to get them to leave.
What
started Saturday as a rally supporting two local ranchers led to a
broader anti-government protest and now the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge building near Burns.
"We will be here as long as it takes," protest spokesman Ammon Bundy told CNN by phone from inside the refuge.
"We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, (but) if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves."
Bundy, 40, is the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who drew national attention in 2014 after staging a standoff with federal authorities.
And like his father, Bundy said he is standing up to the federal government over land rights.
"This
is about taking the correct stand without harming anybody to restore
the land and resources to the people so people across the country can
begin thriving again," he said.
Here's what led up to the occupation and what may happen next:
It started with a march for ranchers
Protesters
gathered Saturday in Burns to denounce the five-year sentencing of
Dwight and Steven Hammond -- father-and-son ranchers who were convicted
of arson.
The
Hammonds have said they started a fire in 2001 to reduce the growth of
invasive plants and to protect their property from wildfires, CNN affiliate KTVZ-TV reported, but that the fire got out of hand.
The father and son are scheduled to turn themselves in Monday afternoon to serve their sentences.
Bundy
said officials are unfairly punishing the Hammonds for refusing to sell
their land. He said it's an example of the government's overreach,
especially when it comes to land rights.
But
according to Billy J. Williams, the acting U.S. attorney in Oregon, the
Hammonds were rightfully convicted after setting fire to about 130
acres of public land in an attempt to cover up poaching.
In an opinion piece for the Burns Times Herald, Williams wrote that the five-year sentences are the minimum for the crimes the Hammonds committed.
Then came the occupation
After the rally supporting Hammonds, some protesters broke into the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge building.
"This refuge -- it has been destructive to the people of the county and to the people of the area," Bundy said.
He said the refuge has taken over the space of 100 ranches since the early 1900s.
"They are continuing to expand the refuge at the expense of the ranchers and miners," Bundy said.
He also said Harney County, in southeastern Oregon, went from one of the state's wealthiest counties to one of the poorest.
CNN has not independently corroborated Bundy's claims.
No employees were inside the building when protesters broke in, officials said.
Bundy
said his group is armed but said he would not describe it as a militia.
He declined to say how many people were with him, saying that
information might jeopardize "operational security."
What the protesters want
When asked what it would take for the protesters to leave, Bundy did not offer specifics.
"The
people will need to be able to use the land and resources without fear
as free men and women. We know it will take some time," he said.
"I
would tell any federal agent that the people are enforcing their rights
and expressing their rights to restore their land and resources back to
the people."
Bundy did not explicitly
call on authorities to commute the prison sentences for the Hammonds.
But he said their case illustrates officials' "abuse" of power.
"We
are not terrorists," Bundy said. "We are concerned citizens and realize
we have to act if we want to pass along anything to our children."
The Hammonds keep their distance
But the Hammonds said they don't want help from Bundy's group.
"Neither
Ammon Bundy nor anyone within his group/organization speak for the
Hammond family," the Hammonds' attorney, W. Alan Schroeder, wrote to
Harney County Sheriff David Ward.
What authorities are doing
CNN Map
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge
As
of early Monday morning, there was no police presence at the building.
But the FBI said it is taking the lead on investigating the situation.
"The FBI is working with the Harney County Sheriff's Office, Oregon
State Police and other local and state law enforcement agencies to bring
a peaceful resolution to the situation at the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge," the agency's Portland office said in a statement.
"Due
to safety considerations for both those inside the refuge as well as
the law enforcement officers involved, we will not be releasing any
specifics with regards to the law enforcement response."
How the community is reacting
The protest has prompted Harney County School District 3 to call off classes for the week, Superintendent Dr. Marilyn L. McBride said.
The federal Bureau of Land Management office in Burns is also closed until further notice, the agency said.
And even though Bundy is not calling his group a militia, others in the community are.
"I
don't like the militia's methods," local resident Monica McCannon told
KTVZ. "They had their rally. Now it's time for them to go home. People
are afraid of them."
What might happen next
Bundy's
call for supporters to join him might "turn into a bad situation," said
CNN law enforcement analyst Art Roderick, a retired U.S. marshal who
investigated anti-government militias.
"What's
going to happen hopefully (is) ... we don't go out there with a big
force, because that's what they're looking for," he said. "The last
thing we need is some type of confrontation."
He said that law enforcement has learned how to handle these types of situations in which a law may have been broken but there hasn't been any eruption of violence and no threats to lives yet.
The best approach now, Roderick said, is to wait the group out and try to figure out how to bring a peaceful resolution.
A 'Y'all Qaeda' threat?
Some
Twitter users decried what they say is a double standard in the
public's reaction to the occupation. They said gunmen who took over the
federal building aren't called terrorists because they're white.
"#YallQaeda waging #YeeHawd on America and we're still calling it a 'peaceful protest,'" John Hulsey tweeted. "It's domestic terrorism and we need to shut it down."
All that Joe WARNED us of is happening in REAL TIME as we speak. #joemccarthyERROR
ReplyDeletehttp://presumptivephilospher.blogspot.com/2014/09/liberalism-is-what-joe-mccarthy-warned.html?spref=tw