.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span>
\n\u2014 Calvin Luther Martin, PhD<\/a>,\u00a0Editor<\/p>\n

.<\/span>
\nThe other day, something significant happened in American history. \u00a0This man stood up to the American government<\/a> \u00a0\u2014 and the government backed down. \u00a0(The \u201cAmerican government\u201d consisting of a small army of heavily armed cops.)<\/p>\n

Before reading further, you must watch this video of the event. \u00a0It\u2019s just a few minutes. \u00a0It\u2019s breathtaking. \u00a0Resistance to tyranny\u00a0is what Americans are made of. \u00a0In this instance, resisting tyranny at home, on American soil. \u00a0These 1000 cowboys and patriots understand that America is \u201cWe, the People.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a story about a number of things: \u00a0(a) The renewable energy scam. \u00a0(b) A foreign energy company taking adverse possession of rangeland used by this rancher\u2019s ancestors going back 150 years, give or take. \u00a0(c) An unseemly collusion between a powerful U.S. Senator, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, and a Chinese energy company.<\/p>\n

The bullying and sleaze of wind energy companies inevitably come to mind.<\/p>\n

In this case, it\u2019s not wind energy, but another non-starter: \u00a0solar energy. \u00a0Involving U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Nevada) negotiating with a Chinese energy mogul to build a huge solar energy plant on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered rangeland \u2014 right smack where this rancher and his forebears have traditionally grazed their livestock. \u00a0The Chinese company being legally represented, incidentally, by Senator Reid\u2019s son, a prominent Nevada attorney.<\/p>\n

Basically, the Reid gang wants ranchers off this land, so it can be sold at pennies on the dollar to this Chinese energy czar<\/a>. \u00a0To do that, they had to pressure the ranchers to remove their grazing cattle. \u00a0Easily enough done: \u00a0The Director of the BLM, Neil Kornze, is a former staffer for Senator Reid.<\/p>\n

\nNeil Kornze, BLM Director<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of the deal for the Chinese company getting approval from, I believe, the county, is that the solar energy produced must have a guaranteed buyer. \u00a0This means the big power company in Nevada would have to commit itself to high-priced, intermittent solar power. \u00a0(Meaning, that when the solar wasn\u2019t available to the grid \u2014 which demands instant, \u201cdispatchable\u201d power \u2014 the state\u2019s sucker power company would have to rapidly buy backup energy from, say, natural gas or coal or nuclear sources \u2014 at most unfavorable prices. \u00a0This is what happens with wind energy, by the way. \u00a0And you and I bear the astronomical costs.)<\/p>\n

In any case, the Nevada power company, so far, has declined the shitty deal.<\/p>\n

The Reid gang isn’t happy about it declining to lock itself into buying expensive solar power and, when unavailable, being forced to buy at exorbitant rates on the spot market. \u00a0But, then, the Reid gang doesn\u2019t necessarily care about Nevada energy ratepayers. \u00a0(It also doesn\u2019t care about the fact that solar arrays \u201ccook\u201d the landscape. \u00a0So much for preserving the \u201cthreatened\u201d turtle \u2014 supposedly threatened by cattle grazing, despite the fact that turtles and cows have co-existed on this land for centuries.)<\/p>\n

Cliven Bundy (pronounced \u201cKl-eye-vin\u201d) is not the first rancher to be evicted from this land by the BLM. \u00a0The others caved in<\/a>. \u00a0Cliven didn\u2019t. \u00a0Despite repeated threats and legal notices and legal judgments, Mr. Bundy calmly responded, \u201cNope! \u00a0I\u2019m not moving my herd, and I will not pay your exorbitant so-called rents. \u00a0I will pay them to the State of Nevada, but I have no contract and never had a contract with the federal govt., and I and my ancestors have been ranching this landscape since the 1870s.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the BLM, under Senator Reid\u2019s former staffer \u2014 the same BLM that’s famous for its bullying and tyranny throughout the American West \u2014 assembled a posse of Rangers and other law enforcement agents and descended on the Bundy ranch and started rounding up Bundy\u2019s herd and impounding it. \u00a0Armed to the teeth and using, among other weapons, a helicopter and police dogs. \u00a0 I believe there were somewhere in the vicinity of 200 of these cops \u2014 brandishing weapons fit for a military assault.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Remember those old John Wayne movies? \u00a0The \u201cDuke\u201d? \u00a0What would the Duke have done? \u00a0You know what he would have done. \u00a0Stayed calm and put out the word, \u201cMy fellow Americans, I appeal to you to come stand by me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Cliven Bundy did what the Duke would do.<\/p>\n

Within days, over 1000 people showed up \u2014 from all over the West \u2014 to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and his family. \u00a0To stand toe to toe with the govt. thugs. \u00a0And, since the govt. thugs brought guns, so did these patriots who joined Cliven Bundy. \u00a0They exercised their Second Amendment right to bear arms. \u00a0Lots of them.<\/p>\n

If you want the full flavor of what this was like, watch Robert Redford\u2019s, \u201cThe Milagro Beanfield War<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0Nearly identical plot. \u00a0(My favorite movie of all-time, by the way; its message is hugely important \u2014 CLM.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Suddenly, a sleazy, back-room caper between the Reid gang, BLM, and a Chinese plutocrat spun out of control into another Milagro Beanfield War. \u00a0The Bundy Cattle Ranch War. \u00a0A standoff. \u00a0Bundy supporters were tasered, thrown to the ground and threatened with fang-baring police dogs<\/a> and drawn weapons, even as the Bundy supporters did not draw their weapons and assault the cops.<\/p>\n

The Bundy patriots refused to budge, however.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(With thanks to cartoonist Glenn McCoy and the NY Times.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the BLM chief was sweating bullets. \u00a0\u201cWhat the fuck!\u201d \u00a0It wasn\u2019t supposed to turn out like this. \u00a0The county sheriff wisely brokered a truce \u2014 and got the BLM to back down just as tempers were about to explode. \u00a0The agreement was: \u00a0The BLM agreed to release the 300-400 cattle it had impounded and the Rangers would leave. \u00a0The Bundy supporters would likewise leave.<\/p>\n

In short, everyone agreed to go home.<\/p>\n

Except me. \u00a0I\u2019m staying on that hallowed ground, savoring it. \u00a0I see a man saying \u201cNo!\u201d to a renewable energy money-making hoax and its bullying attorneys and government enablers. \u00a0I see \u201cpeople of the land\u201d refusing to be fucked by people who intend to make windfall profits from electric ratepayers and taxpayers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How nice it would be to see this same spirit \u2014 the Spirit of Cliven Bundy \u2014 in confrontations with the wind developer thugs. \u00a0Yeah, the guys in suits followed by the goons in hardhats. \u00a0(Talk to 5\u2019, 100 lb. Esther Wrightman if you want an earful about the goons in hardhats who nearly ran her and her colleagues over!)<\/p>\n

Wind energy. \u00a0Solar energy. \u00a0Same scam. \u00a0Same useless energy. \u00a0Same strategy to dispossess people from their land.<\/p>\n

What would the Duke do?<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . \u2014 Calvin Luther Martin, PhD,\u00a0Editor . The other day, something significant happened in American history. \u00a0This man stood up to the American government \u00a0\u2014 and the government backed down. \u00a0(The \u201cAmerican government\u201d consisting of a small army of heavily armed cops.) Before reading further, you must watch this video of the event. \u00a0It\u2019s just a few minutes. \u00a0It\u2019s breathtaking. \u00a0Resistance to tyranny\u00a0is what Americans are made of. \u00a0In this instance, resisting tyranny at home, on American soil. \u00a0These 1000 cowboys and patriots understand that America is \u201cWe, the People.\u201d This is a story about a number of things: \u00a0(a) The renewable energy scam. \u00a0(b) A foreign energy company taking adverse possession of rangeland used by this rancher\u2019s ancestors going back 150 years, give or take. \u00a0(c) An unseemly collusion between a powerful U.S. Senator, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, and a Chinese energy company. The bullying and sleaze of wind energy companies inevitably come to mind. In this case, it\u2019s not wind energy, but another non-starter: \u00a0solar energy. \u00a0Involving U.S. Senator Harry Reid (Nevada) negotiating with a Chinese energy mogul to build a huge solar energy plant on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered rangeland \u2014 right smack where this rancher and his forebears have traditionally grazed their livestock. \u00a0The Chinese company being legally represented, incidentally, by Senator Reid\u2019s son, a prominent Nevada attorney. Basically, the Reid gang wants ranchers off this land, so it can be sold at pennies on the dollar to this Chinese energy czar. \u00a0To do that, they had to pressure the ranchers to remove their grazing cattle. \u00a0Easily enough done: \u00a0The Director of the BLM, Neil Kornze, is a former staffer for Senator Reid. Neil Kornze, BLM Director Part of the deal for the Chinese company getting approval from, IRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[157,16,170],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28933"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}