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Why the Government Owns So Much Land in the West

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posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 07:26 AM
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a reply to: Southern Guardian

I found an interesting article about the current situation and negotiations (and I use that word loosely) in Utah over federal land and the various parties involved -- their interests, their concerns, their hopes and their fears.

The Massive Land Deal That Could Change the West Forever


Utah congressman Rob Bishop, a conservative Republican who has long opposed federal management of western lands, has emerged as the unlikely architect of a grand compromise, one that would involve massive horse trading to preserve millions of acres of wilderness while opening millions more to resource extraction. Is this a trick, or the best way to solve ancient disputes that too often go nowhere?


It references the use/abuse of the Antiquities Act:


This law gives the President of the United States the authority to, by presidential proclamation, create national monuments from public lands to protect significant natural, cultural or scientific features. The Act has been used over a hundred times since its passage. Its use occasionally creates significant controversy.


I don't have much to say about it, just sharing for information purposes.



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 07:36 AM
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a reply to: Boadicea


opening millions more to resource extraction


In other words, this guy wants to take our land and give it to Big Oil and mining companies like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton... neither of which is American.



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 08:28 AM
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originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: Boadicea


opening millions more to resource extraction


In other words, this guy wants to take our land and give it to Big Oil and mining companies like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton... neither of which is American.


Yup. The devil's always in the details, eh? It sounds grand to say, "Give the land to the states!" Until one realizes that the state just wants to sell it off to the highest bidder -- consequences be damned. The first clue is the involvement of ALEC -- the American Legislative Executive Council, and its stepchild, the American Lands Council.



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 08:55 AM
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I live on the border of Idaho and have family ties in that state. Religions have grown so fast in that state that they have the majority on all issues for the past 30yrs. Politics from the Pulpit is very active here. Most have not been back east to see how the land is covered with no trespassing signs. When Idahoans wake up and realize they have been pushed out of their state for more profitable donors, it will be too late. Labrador said it himself, he called them beggars. Even the religious followers will regret the free land they have to play on one day, I betcha.

lmtribune.com...

And then when the state has a crisis like this one from poor road maint by county and state, its bailout time.

www.ktvb.com...



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 09:09 AM
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a reply to: Gryphon66

You're very welcome.

As a fan of the tv show, Flipper, when I was a kid, I have to bet on the dolphins. Interesting factoids .... female dolphins were used in the show, because they're less aggressive and would look better on screen, as they wouldn't show scars on their skin as a result of aggressive interaction with other dolphins. Plus female dolphins are easier to train.

Well, if the dolphins don't survive either, then, yep, good luck to the roaches. I guess humans on Earth will have to start over again, from cockroaches....sigh


a reply to: Boadicea

Good article.
Since the premise in Utah, and ground floor of negotiations there, is the belief

that the government should get out of the stewardship game and revert the land to local management
, I will add a bit of background to this belief....


To understand why the “sovereign” movement’s focus has moved from the South and to the West let’s take a moment for Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) history.

Mormon people were persecuted. They were killed and driven from New York, then from Illinois to the territorial west. LDS culture to this day reminds members to never forget the persecution the “pioneers” endured. One could say it is a religion, like many others, with a complex.

The Mormon intent was to be separate from the United States – regardless of what the Louisiana Purchase had to say. Brigham Young sent people far and wide, into Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, California – even Mexico – to expand the boundaries of an eventual nation state. He developed an army to protect it, known as the Mormon, or Utah, Militia. They call it Deseret.

When the Mormons went west in wagons trains and handcarts, they had slaves with them, “property” of converts from the south. The southwestern corner of Utah is still known as “Dixie,” in reference and deference to the American south. [1]

From the very start Mormons were considered seditionists. Like the South during this Civil War period, they wanted their own country, were a slave state, and rejected the authority of the United States Government.

This challenge to pre-civil war Federal authority was met with what is known as the Utah War, or Buchanan’s Blunder, whereby President Buchanan replaced Brigham Young as Territorial Governor and brought forth charges of treason to all citizens of Utah. He sent U.S. forces to Utah that were met by thousands of Utah Militiamen who believed they were fighting for their lives given the persecution of the past. Eventually, Young was replaced and all Mormons pardoned.

source
edit on 27-2-2016 by desert because: punc



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 10:39 AM
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originally posted by: Boadicea
The first clue is the involvement of ALEC -- the American Legislative Executive Council, and its stepchild, the American Lands Council.


Indeed!

ALEC Exposed: The Koch Connection

Hundreds of ALEC’s model bills and resolutions bear traces of Koch DNA: raw ideas that were once at the fringes but that have been carved into “mainstream” policy through the wealth and will of Charles and David Koch. Of all the Kochs’ investments in right-wing organizations, ALEC provides some of the best returns: it gives the Kochs a way to make their brand of free-market fundamentalism legally binding.



Ted Cruz Launches Senate Fight To Auction Off America’s Public Lands

On Tuesday, Cruz filed an amendment to the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014 (S. 2363) to force the federal government to sell off a significant portion of the country’s most prized lands in the West. The amendment would prohibit the federal government from owning more than 50 percent of any land within one state, and requires the government to transfer the excess land to the states or sell it to the highest bidder.



Ted Cruz & ALEC: Seceding from the Union One Law at a Time

The vision of shielding entire areas of state regulation from the federal government has been further enshrined by ALEC in the form of a model bill developed by their International Task Force, and approved by the ALEC board of directors. Under the title “State Legislature United Compact,” the model bill provides validation for those who half-jokingly warn about the “United States of ALEC,” apparently giving ALEC a role in forming and running the commission that would organize the interstate compact, and ensuring that like-minded conservatives would control the topics and outcomes of a convention. - See more at: www.politicalresearch.org...



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 11:43 AM
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a reply to: desert

Wow -- thanks. I wasn't aware of Cruz' fat grubby fingers in the pie -- but now that I do know, I'm not surprised. Thanks for the heads up. I'll be watching Cruz a little closer now...



posted on Feb, 27 2016 @ 12:39 PM
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a reply to: Boadicea




originally posted by: Boadicea
I'm looking forward to hearing others' thoughts and ideas not just about the present situation, but potential solutions.


Potential solutions. IMO, two things.

1) People need to wake up from the tragic spell they've lived under quite awhile now.


This is what 60 years of fear-mongering in the conservative movement has wrought. This is the end result of a grand paranoia fueled by a vast archipelago of right-wing news sites and think tanks and TV and radio shows lying to you. This is the end a person comes to after imbibing for years the angry shouts and finger-pointing and blaming of everyone else for the slow erosion of living standards and working-class wages and stagnation.

source---couldn't have said it any better

Germans were under the fantastical dream of a Third Reich. Japanese were under the spell of an Imperial Cult. It took war and losing to break the spell.

The US has IMO been fighting a Cold Civil War for a few decades now. Many citizens have joined together in the spell of the fantastical dreams of the John Birch Society and the Koch Brothers Libertarianism (BTW the senior Koch helped start the JBS in the 1950s), which includes the Cold Civil War rhetoric and belief in "states rights". In this hypnotic state, citizens have been told not to compromise, to be anti-federal govt, and to view "the other" as a danger.

2) Work locally. The Burns, Oregon, High Desert Partnership brings people and govt together for solutions.


If we don't give proper strength to the federal government to work as a barrier between us and corporate greed, we will live under corporate rule. The lie that corporations like to spread is that their sole responsibility is to maximize profits for their shareholders. No! It used to be corporations had responsibility for all their actions involving stakeholders (which could involve communities), but "stakeholders" was purposefully narrowed to mean only shareholders.



posted on Mar, 1 2016 @ 01:35 PM
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originally posted by: desert The lie that corporations like to spread is that their sole responsibility is to maximize profits for their shareholders. No! It used to be corporations had responsibility for all their actions involving stakeholders (which could involve communities), but "stakeholders" was purposefully narrowed to mean only shareholders.


CBS CEO on Trump Campaign: It ‘May Not be Good for America, but It’s Damn Good for CBS’


At a Morgan Stanley investors’ conference in San Francisco today, the chief executive officer of CBS, Les Moonves, found the silver lining of this year’s tumultuous election season as only a businessperson can. The latest chairman of the company said, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” and called Donald Trump‘s presence in the race a “good thing.”

The “good thing,” he pointed out, was not necessarily Trump’s campaign stance, but the ad revenue that was driven up by the increased viewership drawn in by the back-and-forth between Trump and other candidates.



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