A Wildfire This Way Burns

Barbara H. Peterson

Farm Wars

A wildfire was set in Burns, Oregon. Not of land or brush, but of the mind and spirit. Ranchers have had enough of sitting back while their lives are destroyed by the ever-encroaching tidal wave of phony environmentalists preaching “biodiversity,” which is not biodiversity at all, but a front for the government to grab as much “public land for the people” that it can get its paws on. True biodiversity is defined by Merriam Webster as “the existence of many different kinds of plants and animals in an environment.”

Yet, those who preach “biodiversity” the loudest and call for an end to cattle on open range appear to have no clue as to its real meaning. They yell “save the grouse” and “save the birds,” yet an understanding of the relationship that these critters have with nature and the other species of life in the environment seems to elude them. If they truly connected with nature they would not allow the federal government to mismanage the “public lands” it supposedly “protects” in order for biodiversity to flourish.

People from the Center for Biological Diversity have recently put out propaganda hit pieces demonizing ranchers such as the following. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t true, as long as it has the necessary drama. And you have to ask yourself; Why? Is there an agenda here that we the people are simply not privy to?

WASHINGTON— An armed militia has taken over a federal building in southeastern Oregon as part of a long-running campaign of violence, intimidation and right-wing paranoia that has festered for decades in the West, most recently with the standoff with Cliven Bundy in Nevada in 2014. Among the demands at the latest standoff is to shut down Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which provides crucial protections for wildlife, especially birds that migrate through the area…

“These are special places that deserve protection for values that we all hold dear: clean air, water and refuge for wildlife,” Suckling said. “Americans, collectively, have decided that these public lands need and deserve protection. That shouldn’t be undone at the behest of men with guns and a dangerous view of how a government should be run.”

As if the mere sight of a cow will throw birds into such a shock that they will hide in the farthest corner of the galaxy, never to appear again. I live in cattle country, and birds don’t seem to mind the bellowing of mama cows giving birth at all. In fact, when Spring comes, the interaction is much like a symphony only heard on the range. At dawn, the birds emerge from their nests to forage in the fields growing strong and green from the natural fertilizer spread by those cows. And who tends the cows? The ranchers. Who tends and protects the land where the cattle roam and the birds migrate through? The ranchers. Not the BLM. And that “dangerous view of how a government should be run” just happens to be a love for and advocation of adherence to the Constitution.

The propaganda piece continues:

“This is the latest in a long string of armed, right-wing thugs attempting to seize America’s public lands and enact their paranoid, anti-government dream bought by guns and intimidation,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’ve seen it with pipebombs planted on wilderness trails and sent to the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. We saw in 2014 with Cliven Bundy and his racist and violent rhetoric in Nevada and now we’re seeing it with his sons in Oregon.”

So, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, ranchers are now armed thugs who are attempting to steal public land in order to rape and pillage it. Yes, the government must save our public lands from the people. Evidently, according to this organization, what we need is more government mismanagement of more and more land. What group leases public lands for uranium mining, other precious mineral mining, gas and oil leases, leaving potential Superfund sites in its wake? The rancher down the road, watering his cows, or the BLM? I’ve never known a cowboy to intentionally foul his own water.

The Center for Biological Diversity goes on to state:

Among the anti-federal government militia who were defending Bundy at his ranch was Jared Miller, who just three months after the standoff at the ranch went on a shooting spree with his wife that included the ambush-murder of two Las Vegas police officers as they ate at a restaurant. They draped the officers with a Gadsden flag — a symbol of liberty used by both the antigovernment “Patriot” movement and members of the Tea Party movement.

They are using “guilt by association” by stating that someone who went on a shooting spree supposedly was “defending Bundy at his ranch.” This supposed “defender” most likely wasn’t even there. Even the Center for Biological Diversity’s cohorts in crimes against cowboys, the Southern Poverty Law Center couldn’t gag that piece of drivel down and had to cough up the truth – someone said that he heard the guy say that he wanted to go and support Bundy.

One of their neighbors said the man told him he had come out to Nevada to participate in the recent standoff with federal authorities over rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. He also told the neighbor that he had been kicked off of Bundy’s ranch property, though Bundy’s wife said she was unaware of any such person having been on their ranch. (SPL)

And Jeffrey Dahmer, cannibal and serial killer, probably said at one time that he wanted to go to Wal-Mart, and probably did. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers! Since Jeffrey Dahmer, known cannibal and serial killer, thought about going to your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart, you have all been placed on the cannibal/serial killer watch list. Please check your horses at the counter and exit peacefully, or not. We have surrounded the building and since we now have all the justification we need to shoot you down like the vermin you are, expect no mercy. Have a nice day, and thank you for shopping Wal-Mart.

This false narrative simply isn’t working on anybody with any common sense at all. It’s like watching a no holds barred, full cinema fictional media masterpiece movie titled “The Dastardly Cowboy Gang Rides,” and its sequel “The Dastardly Cowboy Gang Rides Again.”

Please understand the twists and turns and psychopathic altering of reality that occurs in the scenario being played out by the Center for Biological Diversity. This is a narrative right out of a playbook. ‘Trust the government to take control of all lands in the name of the people.’ As if the ranchers and cattle are stealing the land to rape it and leave it a wasteland for any sort of life to exist. When in truth, the opposite is occurring. It is the government who is stealing and raping the land for profit with the help of its flying monkeys such as the Center for Biological Diversity and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

These cowboys and their families are real people, folks, not some cartoon villains out to pillage and plunder. They don’t play at ranching. They live it. They get dirty every day. They sweat, and they bleed. But most of all, they love the land and their way of life.

While those sitting behind brick walls and sheets of glass surrounded by a concrete wasteland speculate as to why ranchers in the wild, wild, west would get so riled up that they decide to take a stand, I think that the real reason has yet to gain widespread attention.

These ranchers are folks who live where not many city dwellers would want to even step foot. No conveniences to walk to; sometimes not even a decent cell phone signal. The work is hard, and life-consuming. Critters need care 24/7, not just an occasional treat when we feel like it. When you live on a ranch your personal needs take a backseat to the welfare of your herd. That’s just the way it is. And in order to keep your herd healthy, the rangeland needs to be healthy. You need water and you need the vegetation to flourish, and that requires maintenance. It requires care. It requires making sure that there is forage enough for all the critters that live there, as well as an ample supply of clean water.

Controlled burns are also necessary to eliminate the fire hazard present when too much dead and decaying debris is left untended. When the land is mismanaged, fires burn hotter and more out of control.

At the Haeberle Ranch, between the towns of Okanogan and Conconully in north central Washington state, Rod Haeberle, 66, and his daughter, Nicole Kuchenbuch, 36, and son-in-law Casey Kuchenbuch, 36, voiced concerns about “mismanagement” of government lands. Their comments mirrored those of ranchers in southeastern Oregon after the massive 582,313-acre Long Draw and 430,000-acre Holloway fires of 2012.

“These fires are not a surprise for those of us who live and work in eastern Washington. We’ve been warning about the potential disastrous effects of federal and state management policies for many years,” said Nicole Kuchenbuch.

“Agencies have allowed forests to become overgrown and unhealthy, consumed by underbrush that’s fuel for fires,” she said.

“Agencies tell us to keep our cattle out of creek bottoms, but there’s no grass elsewhere because they don’t thin forests,” she said. (Daily Astorian)

Even the president of the Farm Bureau criticized the federal government’s hypocritical actions regarding a situation that got out of control due to the BLM’s neglect of the land.

OKANOGAN, Wash. — It’s “outrageous and hypocritical” that the federal government imprisoned two Oregon ranchers for a backburn that got away from them and burned a little over 100 acres of public land while federal and state agencies backburned thousands of acres of private land in Okanogan County last summer and were not held accountable, the president of the Okanogan County Farm Bureau says. (Daily Astorian)

When the vegetation flourishes and the land is not neglected and left to turn into a tinderbox ready for one spark to ignite it, all life flourishes. This is true biodiversity, not the kind that calls for the sacrifice of one species for the other and the extermination of those who are the real stewards of the land – those who work that land daily, 24/7 by providing water, controlled burns, and manure from their herds of cattle.

Where is the perspective? Where is common sense? Have these things been eliminated by the need to be surrounded by concrete and steel? For the need to be isolated from nature as we place all of our supposed “biodiversity” in a walled-off area protected by guns, drones and mercenary law enforcement? Are we to be killed because we live with the critters and are not mere spectators? Will the wildfires that burn ever hotter due to neglect and mismanagement of our public lands scorch the earth so badly that the only place we can still exist is on the other side of that wall? And what happens to the critters that the government is “protecting” then? Will they miraculously escape the all-consuming fire that sweeps down devouring everything in its path? Is the “management” provided by the BLM really protecting our biodiversity? Or is it setting us up for population control? Is it attempting to herd more and more people off the land and into glass, steel and concrete enclosures “protected” from interacting with what it is supposed to be protecting for us?

Yes, a wildfire this way burns. Not only the fires sweeping across BLM and forestry land, but across the minds of those who can see their lives going up in smoke. Those who have lived on the land for decades who now see the “biodiversity” driven control grid tighten around their necks like a hangman’s noose. Who see beyond the concrete, steel and glass of human enclosures and into the reality of living with other species and plants in real, honest to goodness biodiversity. Not the false kind that you see packaged and sold to us with a price tag stamped on the front. And inside that package? Nothing but the fading heartbeat of the last rancher standing his ground. The ground that is being burned out from under his feet. A smoldering ash that once was his home.

And a glass snow globe containing the last vestiges of life on earth sits on the desktop of the CEO of Biodiversity, Inc. Mission accomplished. Biodiversity has been preserved. We can all rest easier now. But can we? Can we really…

A wildfire this way burns. And the BLM cannot put it out. The Fire Department cannot put it out. No force on this earth can put it out. It cannot be contained. It will burst forth like the sun, shedding light on all the dark places, revealing what lies in secret and in the hidden closets where no light has yet shown. It burns hotter than any flame, and is contagious. A virus, if you will… A virus called simply, the truth.

©2016 Barbara H. Peterson

Tags: Barbara H. Peterson, BLM, bundy, burns, Farm Wars, farmwars, federal government, fire, hammond, land grab, media attack dogs, truth, tyranny