This is the first post on the subject of the recent Malheur occupation that speaks to me enough to repost. The author, an independent journalist who lives in rural Montana and remembers his “anarchist” youth, looks both askance, and sympathetically, at the mostly eldering rural ranchers who “took up the cause” — without, he discovered, either a sense of the region’s history, or the likely (corporatist) implications of “returning the land to the states.”

His acute observations of the dynamics of this temporary “community” reminded me of my own youthful messy idealistic chaotic entanglements!

P.S. The author doesn’t mention the native peoples of this land, whose territorial claim, if we want to look at the Malheur drama that way, is obviously both primary and primal.

One thing is for sure: more and more, the “common” folks of this country and this world are yelling with Howard Beale (and Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders): “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.” The question becomes: how to harness this rising energy?

Via Todd and David.

Can we make sense of the Malheur Mess?