My thoughts and feelings about Fox Propaganda News Channel are well known, from their inaccuracies, half-truths and lies to their deceptive, right wing ideology posing as “fair and balanced.” This past week however, the Fox channel displayed a stunning disregard for the safety and welfare of federal agents, local law enforcement, and the wives and children of the 100 plus “protesters” gathering in Nevada to “defend” the “freedom” of scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy.
Mr. Bundy is cattle rancher in Bunkerville, Nevada, who has been illegally grazing approximately 900 cattle on federal land for the past twenty years. Ordinarily, cattle ranchers pay the owners of land to allow their livestock to graze there, whether it is to a private land owner, the state of Nevada, or the federal government. Mr. Bundy, however, does not recognize the federal government, so therefore has decided that his cattle, that he raises for profit, can graze on federal land without paying for it. He has been engaged in a longstanding legal battle with the Bureau of Land Mangement, and the courts have ruled repeatedly against him. He owes the federal government in excess of one million dollars for back fees accumulating over the past 20 years, and refuses to pay, or remove his cattle. Consequently, the BLM confiscated some 400 of his cattle on April 5, under court order.
And some how, thanks in no small part to the right wing radio talk show host and Fox pundit Sean Hannity, this rather cut and dry legal matter has been blown dangerously out of proportion, leading to a tense standoff of over 100 armed protesters, brought in from other states and localities – most if not any of them other ranchers. Militia types, with a general hatred towards the federal government, itching for an outright gun battle with federal agents and law enforcement officials. The situation careened towards a dangerous match point this past week, and the governor of Nevada, the Bureau of Land Management, and Nevada law enforcement decided to release the cattle in order to deescalate the situation. Given numerous past tragedies, including the infamous showdown of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco Texas that resulted in the violent deaths of 4 federal agents and six cult members in 1993.
My first reaction to the news as it was unfolding this past week was one of incredulity that the government would back down from a court order because a bunch of nut case militiamen were toting guns and taking the law into their own hands. But, given that Tea Party leader Richard Mack was widely quoted as saying that “We were actually strategizing to put all the women up front,” and “If they were going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot.”
So, it appears that cooler heads prevailed, reasoning, I assume, that the issue could be dealt with again at a later date when the spectacle of another Waco type of tragedy wasn’t in the works. Reasonable enough.
What I was most shocked to learn, though, as the news about this came out, was the role and dangerous rhetoric of Sean Hannity and other conservative commentators that appeared to be literally instigating, irritating, and playing on the paranoia of the anti-government types that traveled to the ranch, guns and ammunition in hand, and women and children in tow to be used as human shields or pawns – admitted, as quoted, by Richard Mack.
Sean Hannity has interviewed Cliven Bundy numerous times this past week on Fox, propping him up as some sort of oppressed American who is standing up against a tyrannical federal government. Mr. Hannity has aligned himself with Bundy and his armed “protesters” in the context of a potential shoot out with the government. Mr. Hannity has gone so far to suggest to Mr. Bundy and his family that the federal government may come back to the ranch to kill Bundy and his followers. It is stunning that a major network broadcaster would tread the thin line of inciting a riot or violence so closely, given the potential for disaster.
What is ridiculous, aside from the potential loss of human life, is the argument that Hannity and his cronies have been making, that his is about “freedom.” from an “out of control federal government.” This is factually about a cowboy hat wearing freeloader who has used the convenient excuse of himself not recognizing the federal government as justification for not paying for the land his cattle graze on, like all other cattle ranchers and law abiding citizens do. It is not about a “tyrannical” big bad government coming onto Mr. Bundy’s land to oppress him. Mr. Hannity cannot be that stupid. He knows what this is about in simple terms, yet he has chosen to exploit this situation to inflame the extreme anti-government militia types into a spectacle that can then be morphed to fit the conservative narrative that the Government is the Big Bad, Freedom Taking Wolf, going after the little guy.
What is ironic and transparently hypocritical, is how conservatives, who often characterize poor people on food stamps, medicaid, medicare, or unemployment as “takers” and deadbeats, are characterizing this owner of a ranch and 900 cattle who refuses to pay the government for 20 years of freeloading on federal land, as some sort of victim, and defender of freedom. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who often makes a very articulate and legitimate argument on various issues, only to be followed by a complete jack-ass of a statement or statements, managed to join the fray of those in the clear wrong on this one. Mr. Paul told Fox “This is a real, I think, intellectual and constitutional and legal debate, “but it shouldn’t be about violence of arms, and I hope that the government will not be there in full arms and provoke a showdown and something terrible will happen. I hope that doesn’t happen.”
So a hundred nut jobs descend on Nevada to the rallying call of Sean Hannity and others, arms in hand, with one of their leaders openly saying that they were putting the women and children up front in case of a shoot out, and Rand Paul somehow interprets this as him worrying that the federal government would show up armed and “provoking” – the government who ultimately decided to postpone enforcement of the court order against Mr. Bundy in order to spare the innocent wives and children of the idiots who were there hoping for an apocalyptic showdown, as well as the lives of those federal and Nevada employees who were doing their job. The ABC news website quotes a Utah resident named Yonna Winget as saying “It’s not about cows, it’s about freedom.”
Well, you can quote me as saying “it’s not about freedom, it’s about bullshit.”
The other irony and hypocrisy is the complete contradiction of interpretations that Fox and conservatives display as they characterize this situation as the Big Government hassling a poor rancher, a Big Government with unchecked power that is oppressing freedom and acting “tyrannical.” while at the same time supporting whole heatedly what will amount to the federal government claiming “eminent domain” on behalf of the Canadian trans-national corporation that wants to build the Keystone Pipeline to transport their dirty tar sands oil from Canada across private lands and our nation’s largest qualifier. You see, when conservatives and bullshit artists like Sean Hannity refer to the tyranny of Big Government, they aren’t talking about the government serving the needs of the super rich corporations and private wealth and putting those needs above the citizenry. If the federal government is needed to override the citizens and state government’s will where the TransCanada Corporation wants to build a for-profit pipeline transporting the dirtiest and most dangerous form of crude oil to the international markets, even though it will mean seizing private land under the dubious legal authority of “imminent domain” . . . well, they fully support that. As John Boehner has said of that, “it’s not complicated.”
Yet they pretend this relatively simple case of a scofflaw, refusing to pay his bills for 20 years cattle rancher, is a bigger fight over “freedom.” Mr. Hannity had told the gun toters that he would be out there to join them. I sure hope so, because if anyone deserves to take responsibility if shooting breaks out, it’s the loudmouth instigator and liar from Fox Propaganda News. Maybe with a little luck he’ll take Bill O’Reilly with him. But I wouldn’t bet on it. After all, it’s not about cows, it’s about bullshit.