'Hunter Gray' hunterbadbear@hunterbear.org [marxist]
2014-05-12 13:33:07 UTC
These are brief comments on several matters.
Although not intensely interested in the Eastern Ukraine situation, there seems no doubt about the massive turnout for the referendum vote and the equally massive desire for some sort of self rule. DC predictably denounced the vote as "illegal." But to momentarily belabor the obvious, the American Revolution and many of its global kin, were certainly seen as "illegal" in many quarters. Where things go from here remains speculative at this point.
When, a few weeks ago, the armed Nevada Rancher and his militia and other allies successfully "stood off" the US Bureau of Land Management in its efforts to round up his cattle as part of his million dollar grazing and water debt, I immediately wrote off his ostensibly libertarian rhetoric (in contrast to bona fide libertarian currents) as simply a cover for his colossal rip-off. All of that became very clear as things proceeded. For a tiny moment in history, the rancher was a symbol supported by many kindred spirits around the country. Then as the facts of the matter unfolded, he began to lose support. When racist comments of his were widely reported -- although these are not central at all to the basic issue -- almost all of his support around the country ended. The FBI is now investigating the armed standoff situation and related aspects. I give BLM, USFS, and the US Park Service high marks for consistently good and sensitive public service.
However, this did spark some increased coveting activism in some Western quarters about public lands. Most of the lands in the Mountain West are Federally public -- and there are akin public pieces in the Western Plains states as well. The thrust from some quarters to place these lands under state control ("Sagebrush Rebellion" stuff) is persistent. If placed under state control, these lands would be quickly seized by the economic royalists.
I don't think this will happen. There is a host of legal obstacles to any transfer of Federal lands. (There can be tiny transfers for city expansion and such but matching lands have to be provided to BLM or USFS before that can happen.) Idaho, when it entered the Union, was accompanied by a provision in its new constitution prohibiting any taking of public lands. Some other Western states have roughly comparable measures. And there are other protections as well -- including Federal in nature. (The lands of Federally recognized Native tribes are now well protected though there are issues such as water rights and the nefarious effects of nearby off-reservation uranium development.)
And I think most Americans, Western or otherwise, would not support any changes in the status of public lands.
Still, eternal vigilance regarding all of these matters is needed -- always and forever.
I chanced to pick up an interesting panel discussion the other day on the public lands issue. Two of the panelists were quite good -- one, from Massachusetts, an expert on the legal dimensions and the other, based in Nevada, well versed in Western American culture. Each was committed to maintaining the public nature of these vast lands. The third panelist was a youngish state representative from Utah -- who was out for state control.
The Utah man launched into a genuinely garbled effort at "legal justifications" for control by the states, and, as he rambled on, his presentation and other comments became too convoluted to follow. For some incomprehensible reason, he saw importance -- and repeated this several times -- in Nebraska as following Wyoming into statehood.
On my Anglo mother's side of our family, I have numerous relatives in North Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma. I know these states, especially Kansas and North Dakota, extremely well. The Kansas/Nebraska Act, granting territorial status to each, was passed in 1854. Kansas, which had come dangerously close to being deemed a slave state, achieved statehood -- as a free state -- in 1861. Nebraska was granted statehood in 1867.
North and South Dakota became states in latter 1889. A few months later, in 1890, Wyoming and Idaho secured that status.
I really hope this Utah guy isn't a lawyer. Generally, I have considerable respect for that profession.
Finally, a little on Sedona, Arizona -- widely known nationally and internationally as a Jewel and a super choice living and vacation setting. I have a somewhat different perspective. Friends of mine from the East wrote me to the effect that they were visiting Phoenix, and would be in Sedona (they spent last night there) en route to the Grand Canyon. I wrote them back immediately, and then quoted a piece of mine on the history of Sedona:
" You may recall that Flagstaff is my home town. As such, I knew "older" Sedona very well. You might be interested in this which I wrote a few years ago -- in the context of a much larger piece:
In the long ago Old Days, Sedona -- tucked away in the always serene and
generally snow-less lower end of genuinely spectacular Oak Creek Canyon in
north central Arizona -- was a tiny hamlet, pretty much unknown beyond our
Coconino and Yavapai counties. Cowpunchers wintered there, often gathered
within and around what was known as "Dr Bird's Hospital" -- an informal and
excellent saloon owned and operated by the father of a school friend of mine
[who, with all of the Sedona kids, was regularly school-bussed up the
torturous winding switch-backs at the upper end of Oak Creek into the higher
yellow pine country around Flag.]
Well below Sedona, in what's called Lower Oak Creek, my folks owned a
respectable acreage with a cabin and creek frontage on three sides. [They
purchased it from a gambler who had to leave the state.] The few newcomers
into the general Oak Creek setting were mostly genuinely creative artists:
Max Ernst [the surrealist painter]; Cecil Murdock, a top painter [and a
Kickapoo Indian]; Nassan Abiskaroun, a fine sculptor; Bob Kittredge, a first
rate writer. My parents knew all of these very well and we often went down
to Sedona to visit -- sometimes with our very old and oft-visiting family
friend, the Mexican Indian artist, Jean Charlot. And Dad, himself,
occasionally spent some time there visioning and producing his own great
art.
Like many idyllic corners, Utopia was not eternal. First came the Hollywood
film companies -- and some truly great films were produced amidst the lower
red rocks and the higher white rocks, the cedars and the manzanitas and the
blackjack oaks and the great gushing clear waters of Oak Creek, itself lined
with sycamore and cottonwood trees. New businesses began to emerge,
people -- often nice people -- moved in.
And then, a flood of people began to come -- from the East, from California,
from Phoenix. [Some were nice.] My parents had purchased a large lot close
to Sedona but, disturbed by the invasion and the then exodus of many of the
bona fide creative folk [the old cowboys had already decamped], eventually
sold it [at a reasonable profit.] In time, the invasion moved toward and
into the Lower Oak Creek setting. My parents had deeded their acreage and
cabin to me and my two brothers. We hung onto it for years, grimly,
until -- totally surrounded by people with whom we had absolutely nothing in
common and waiting until the best peak sale moment -- finally followed the
lead of our old-time small rancher and farmer and retired hard-rock miner
neighbors and sold our land to a doctor from Phoenix. Long before this,
the Sedona area had had everything from paranoid paramilitarists to the more
dubious New Age followers -- before finally becoming submerged by the
wealthy. By this time, even our home town of Flagstaff had jumped from
5,000 to 70,000. (H)
My friends wrote back immediately. They had wondered about the roots of Sedona and
very much appreciated my historical sketch.
Hunter Bear
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm
See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)
Although not intensely interested in the Eastern Ukraine situation, there seems no doubt about the massive turnout for the referendum vote and the equally massive desire for some sort of self rule. DC predictably denounced the vote as "illegal." But to momentarily belabor the obvious, the American Revolution and many of its global kin, were certainly seen as "illegal" in many quarters. Where things go from here remains speculative at this point.
When, a few weeks ago, the armed Nevada Rancher and his militia and other allies successfully "stood off" the US Bureau of Land Management in its efforts to round up his cattle as part of his million dollar grazing and water debt, I immediately wrote off his ostensibly libertarian rhetoric (in contrast to bona fide libertarian currents) as simply a cover for his colossal rip-off. All of that became very clear as things proceeded. For a tiny moment in history, the rancher was a symbol supported by many kindred spirits around the country. Then as the facts of the matter unfolded, he began to lose support. When racist comments of his were widely reported -- although these are not central at all to the basic issue -- almost all of his support around the country ended. The FBI is now investigating the armed standoff situation and related aspects. I give BLM, USFS, and the US Park Service high marks for consistently good and sensitive public service.
However, this did spark some increased coveting activism in some Western quarters about public lands. Most of the lands in the Mountain West are Federally public -- and there are akin public pieces in the Western Plains states as well. The thrust from some quarters to place these lands under state control ("Sagebrush Rebellion" stuff) is persistent. If placed under state control, these lands would be quickly seized by the economic royalists.
I don't think this will happen. There is a host of legal obstacles to any transfer of Federal lands. (There can be tiny transfers for city expansion and such but matching lands have to be provided to BLM or USFS before that can happen.) Idaho, when it entered the Union, was accompanied by a provision in its new constitution prohibiting any taking of public lands. Some other Western states have roughly comparable measures. And there are other protections as well -- including Federal in nature. (The lands of Federally recognized Native tribes are now well protected though there are issues such as water rights and the nefarious effects of nearby off-reservation uranium development.)
And I think most Americans, Western or otherwise, would not support any changes in the status of public lands.
Still, eternal vigilance regarding all of these matters is needed -- always and forever.
I chanced to pick up an interesting panel discussion the other day on the public lands issue. Two of the panelists were quite good -- one, from Massachusetts, an expert on the legal dimensions and the other, based in Nevada, well versed in Western American culture. Each was committed to maintaining the public nature of these vast lands. The third panelist was a youngish state representative from Utah -- who was out for state control.
The Utah man launched into a genuinely garbled effort at "legal justifications" for control by the states, and, as he rambled on, his presentation and other comments became too convoluted to follow. For some incomprehensible reason, he saw importance -- and repeated this several times -- in Nebraska as following Wyoming into statehood.
On my Anglo mother's side of our family, I have numerous relatives in North Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma. I know these states, especially Kansas and North Dakota, extremely well. The Kansas/Nebraska Act, granting territorial status to each, was passed in 1854. Kansas, which had come dangerously close to being deemed a slave state, achieved statehood -- as a free state -- in 1861. Nebraska was granted statehood in 1867.
North and South Dakota became states in latter 1889. A few months later, in 1890, Wyoming and Idaho secured that status.
I really hope this Utah guy isn't a lawyer. Generally, I have considerable respect for that profession.
Finally, a little on Sedona, Arizona -- widely known nationally and internationally as a Jewel and a super choice living and vacation setting. I have a somewhat different perspective. Friends of mine from the East wrote me to the effect that they were visiting Phoenix, and would be in Sedona (they spent last night there) en route to the Grand Canyon. I wrote them back immediately, and then quoted a piece of mine on the history of Sedona:
" You may recall that Flagstaff is my home town. As such, I knew "older" Sedona very well. You might be interested in this which I wrote a few years ago -- in the context of a much larger piece:
In the long ago Old Days, Sedona -- tucked away in the always serene and
generally snow-less lower end of genuinely spectacular Oak Creek Canyon in
north central Arizona -- was a tiny hamlet, pretty much unknown beyond our
Coconino and Yavapai counties. Cowpunchers wintered there, often gathered
within and around what was known as "Dr Bird's Hospital" -- an informal and
excellent saloon owned and operated by the father of a school friend of mine
[who, with all of the Sedona kids, was regularly school-bussed up the
torturous winding switch-backs at the upper end of Oak Creek into the higher
yellow pine country around Flag.]
Well below Sedona, in what's called Lower Oak Creek, my folks owned a
respectable acreage with a cabin and creek frontage on three sides. [They
purchased it from a gambler who had to leave the state.] The few newcomers
into the general Oak Creek setting were mostly genuinely creative artists:
Max Ernst [the surrealist painter]; Cecil Murdock, a top painter [and a
Kickapoo Indian]; Nassan Abiskaroun, a fine sculptor; Bob Kittredge, a first
rate writer. My parents knew all of these very well and we often went down
to Sedona to visit -- sometimes with our very old and oft-visiting family
friend, the Mexican Indian artist, Jean Charlot. And Dad, himself,
occasionally spent some time there visioning and producing his own great
art.
Like many idyllic corners, Utopia was not eternal. First came the Hollywood
film companies -- and some truly great films were produced amidst the lower
red rocks and the higher white rocks, the cedars and the manzanitas and the
blackjack oaks and the great gushing clear waters of Oak Creek, itself lined
with sycamore and cottonwood trees. New businesses began to emerge,
people -- often nice people -- moved in.
And then, a flood of people began to come -- from the East, from California,
from Phoenix. [Some were nice.] My parents had purchased a large lot close
to Sedona but, disturbed by the invasion and the then exodus of many of the
bona fide creative folk [the old cowboys had already decamped], eventually
sold it [at a reasonable profit.] In time, the invasion moved toward and
into the Lower Oak Creek setting. My parents had deeded their acreage and
cabin to me and my two brothers. We hung onto it for years, grimly,
until -- totally surrounded by people with whom we had absolutely nothing in
common and waiting until the best peak sale moment -- finally followed the
lead of our old-time small rancher and farmer and retired hard-rock miner
neighbors and sold our land to a doctor from Phoenix. Long before this,
the Sedona area had had everything from paranoid paramilitarists to the more
dubious New Age followers -- before finally becoming submerged by the
wealthy. By this time, even our home town of Flagstaff had jumped from
5,000 to 70,000. (H)
My friends wrote back immediately. They had wondered about the roots of Sedona and
very much appreciated my historical sketch.
Hunter Bear
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm
See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)