A new and more dangerous Sagebrush Rebellion

[struggle4progress]

Jonathan Thompson OPINION Feb. 10, 2016

... precious few locals or even ranchers were among the couple of dozen occupiers of Oregon's Malheur Wildlife Refuge. The lead occupier, Ammon Bundy, may look the part, but he actually owns a truck-fleet maintenance business in Phoenix. At one of his press conferences, Bundy said that he wasn't just sticking up for "the ranchers, the loggers and the farmers," but also for the "auto industry, the health-care industry and financial advisors." That remark, which ignored the federal largesse those industries receive, revealed the crusade's true scope.

Whereas the Sagebrush Rebellion of old was driven largely by pragmatic, grassroots concerns, today's version is purely ideological –– a nationwide confluence of right-wing and libertarian extremists. Many of them have little interest in grazing allotments, mining laws or the Wilderness Act. It's what these things symbolize that matters: A tyrannical federal government that activists can denounce, defy and perhaps even engage in battle. This movement, which has grown increasingly virulent since President Barack Obama's election, has created a stew of ideologically similar groups, ready to coalesce around each other when necessary.

The groups are bound together by libertarian-tinged ideology, disdain if not hatred for Obama, and by fear that the government will take away their guns, their liberty, their money, their land, their Confederate flags, and, yes, Christmas.

"What we're seeing in the West is a number of extremist streams coming together to form a backdrop that is complicated and frankly confusing," says Ryan Lenz of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The confluence occurred at incidents like the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada, where members from all of these different movements -- elected officials included -- stood shoulder to shoulder to defend the "rights" of what they portrayed as a persecuted rancher ...

http://www.hcn.org/articles/a-new-and-more-dangerous-sagebrush-rebellion

[phantom power]

1. I question the toss-off assertion that the original Sagebrush Rebellion was "pragmatic"

and "not ideological." In what respect?

[IDemo]

2. Here, too

My state was at the center of the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, and it was not a reasoned debate among equals about management of public lands. The Libertarianism was strong back then as well.

[Nitram]

3. Exactly. That's why Reagan said in a Salt Lake city speech, " "I happen to be one who cheers...

"... and supports the Sagebrush Rebellion. Count me in as a rebel." There was no one more ideological than the Gipper.

[Ford_Prefect]

4. The prairie fire lit by Koch senior.