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| Image: Donkey Hotey, CC BY-SA 2.0 |
Ammon Bundy has said it repeatedly: he doesn't plan on going anywhere any time soon. Now you can watch him tell a reporter that just this last week.
Do we believe him yet? Or are the authorities going to let these guys keep telling them they're open to negotiating an exit while they tell everyone who will listen that they're not. Going. Anywhere.
Portland show "Your Voice, Your Vote" went to Burns and interviewed, at length, the County Sheriff, Ammon Bundy, and the Judge who ruled that the occupiers are on the hook for around $70k per week in local costs.
The Sheriff's and Judge's interviews really shed light on just how intimidating and threatening these guys are being in the community - in some cases, explicitly, in others, implicitly.
Two armed guys the Sheriff *knows* are Bundy guys followed him and his young son around a store while they Christmas shopped (Bundy guys tried to claim "false flag," but Sheriff saw those specific men with Bundy at the occupation site before and after the incident.)
30 to 40 armed militia guys filed into a high school gym for a community meeting about 25 minutes into it, dispersed all around the perimeter, then yelled and booed at any community member who said they wanted the militia guys gone. One indicated that the crowd was very much intimidated by the militia guys' armed presence, and fewer community folks were willing to speak against them - when *all* speakers the first 25 minutes had been demanding they leave Malheur.
There is nothing peaceful about this. "Non-violent " doesn't simply mean an absence of actual bloodshed. Folks in Burns have been under siege for weeks, some for months. Stalking, harassment, and constant threats of lethal force *are* violence. I've had prolonged stalking/harassment - with NO concern about lethal force at all - trigger my PTSD and really screw me up for months, even years. Does anyone among Burns' 2,700 folks have PTSD from other experiences? Howe many might have it now, thanks to the constant threat of violence? I don't know how I would survive if I were a deputy or USFWS staffer being tailed by armed folks every time I turn around. I suspect I wouldn't.
The Bundy folks don't seem to realize it, but they are hurting people. They already have hurt people. And they keep on doing it. They are bullies and - I no longer remotely hesitate to use this word - terrorists.
The people of Burns have endured enough already. Shut this mess down, already, authorities.
Stream the whole show (52 minutes) HERE:
#MalheurOccupation #BurnsOregon #ShutMalheurDown
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