http://youtu.be/SnRDDWJSrNU
And a lot of the usual suspects, including the Bundy gang, are involved:
Blanding • Fed up with federal control over lands their families have used for generations, Blanding residents along with out-of-town supporters on Saturday drove all-terrain vehicles into Recapture Canyon, an area rich in prehistoric sites the Bureau of Land Management closed to motorized use seven years ago.
San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, acting, he said, as a private citizen, organized the ride. It commenced with a rally in Blanding’s Centennial Park protesting what he and more than 200 supporters call federal “overreach” into local jurisdiction. Prompting the protest was BLM’s failure to process San Juan County’s applications for ATV rights-of-way in Recapture, although resentment toward the federal agency here runs much deeper and wider than the canyon that parallels Blanding a few miles to the east.
BLM officials said they were disappointed protestors broke the law Saturday, adding that federal officers recorded riders whom they intend to prosecute.
“We’re not proponents of breaking the law,” Lyman told reporters at the park, an hour before joining dozens of riders on the closed route. “This was a supervisor’s discretionary closure. It’s a county road. We claim it. Just because BLM owns the property, that doesn’t mean they own the right-of-way that exists.”
Part of a broad backlash against federal land management across the West, the ATV protest has attracted out-of-state activists eager to denounce federal authority over public lands. Some came decked in military camouflage and sidearms slung on their thighs. Militiamen approached by The Tribune declined to be interviewed.
Others protesters argued that BLM caved to special interests, like wilderness proponents and preservationists, in closing the canyon at the expense of the public, especially those who have trouble walking.
But the canyon offers a window into how ancient Native Americans thrived for centuries in an arid, rugged land, according to Jerry Spangler, of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance.
“Damage to archaeological sites is permanent and the information about our collective past is then lost forever,” Spangler said. “It is sad that irreplaceable treasures of importance to all Americans would be sacrificed on the altar of anti-government fervor. It is worse that protesters would be so blinded to their own insensitivity as to what others consider to be sacred treasures of their past.”
First of all these people are wackos. That said, it is a fact that the federal government owns 50% of the land in many western states. But what’s most troubling is the utter failure of the Democratic Party to educate these people. How is it that the Republican Party owns the minds of these people lock, stock and smoking gun? Somehow it doesn’t seem an accident. Do we really have a two party system in this country? Or does the oligarchy own the political process outright? Are these battles between the Democrats and the Republicans nothing more than staged events to keep “we the people” at each others throats?
I’m surprised that Arizona resident Sarah Palin wasn’t there to lend her moral and intellectual support to this patriotic undertaking.
It’s beginning to look as if this is all done with the approval of the NSA and BLM. Once again, where are the militarized police with water cannons, mace, bean bag guns, and live rounds?