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Although I have mixed feelings about even referring to the batty cult I
once belonged to, they have stood up for the Hammonds as victims of a
vindictive federal government.
Last week's Militant stated: "The capitalist state has been growing
since the end of World War II. The Barack Obama administration has
accelerated the expansion of federal regulation. In many Western states,
where a majority of the land is under government jurisdiction, this
leads to fights over access to grazing, water and other necessities for
ranchers and farmers."
Can you imagine that? "Communists" making a stink about excessive
federal regulation when the DP head of the EPA in Michigan was complicit
in the lead poisoning in Flint and after 8 years of Obama not a single
banker has gone to prison.
This week they continue their crusade for the Hammonds, using rhetoric
as if they were Emmett Till or the Central Park Five.
The Socialist Workers Party urges working people to join in demanding
the U.S. government free Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond! We
should also join in condemning the FBI and cop killing of Robert Finicum
and the arrest of Ammon Bundy and other participants in the occupation
of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge on conspiracy charges.
The Hammonds have been imprisoned twice on the same frame-up arson
charges for seeking to defend their ranch and livelihood from government
interference and abuse. Their sentence was vindictively lengthened by
the federal “justice” system through use of anti-working-class terrorism
laws.
They write this shit without even bothering to look into the actual
history of these characters:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/04/the-mysterious-fires-that-led-to-the-bundy-clans-oregon-standoff/
The trouble with the Hammonds and fire began in 2001. That year, the
government showed, Steven Hammond went hunting, killing deer on land
under control of the Bureau of Land Management. What to do to erase
evidence of this game violation? Break out the matches.
“Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out ‘Strike Anywhere’
matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground
because they were going to ‘light up the whole country on fire,'” a
Justice Department account of the trial read. “One witness testified
that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the
arson.”
The result: More than 100 acres of public land were destroyed. But, the
government said, Steven Hammond was ready with an explanation. Sure, he
had started the fire, he said. But he never meant to burn any land his
family didn’t own.
“After committing the arson, Steven Hammond called the BLM office in
Burns, Oregon, and claimed the fire was started on Hammond property to
burn off invasive species and had inadvertently burned onto public
lands,” the Justice Department wrote. “Dwight and Steven Hammond told
one of their relatives to keep his mouth shut and that nobody needed to
know about the fire.”
---
In terms of the mandatory minimum sentences they received. I know a bit
about this because my cousin Joel was sent to prison for five years for
growing marijuana on his upstate NY estate for his personal use. I think
that mandatory minimums are repressive and that drugs should be
legalized. But in the case of the Hammonds the judge had no alternative
except to follow the law. What galls me about these rightwing yahoos is
their selective application of constitutionality. They walk around with
a constitution in their back pocket but have the idea that they can pick
and choose which laws apply to them. Ridiculous.
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