PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) – A coalition of public policy advocates warned on Tuesday that a group of armed conservative activists who have been guarding a mine in southern Oregonfor over a month are a sign of an emerging violent anti-government movement.
The groups behind the newly formed “Ballots Not Bullets” coalition said they will seek to promote democracy over what they call militia-style extremism and will try to counter these kinds of movements nationwide.
Created by seven organizations including the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and Catholics in Alliance for Common Good, Ballots Not Bullets is a response to an ongoing legal battle between the owners of a mining claim outside the small Oregon town of Medford and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
Sugar Pine Mine co-owner Rick Barclay summoned guards from the conservative Oath Keepersactivist network following a stop-work order he received in March after BLM officials said equipment found on site did not meet requirements.
The armed guards were still guarding the mine as of Tuesday, Oath Keepers spokeswoman Mary Emerick said, although she would not say how many.
The founders of Ballots Not Bullets, who say they may lobby Oregon lawmakers on the issue, describe the dispute as the latest manifestation of last year’s standoff between Nevada rancherCliven Bundy and the federal government, in which the BLM sought to seize Bundy’s cattle after he refused to pay grazing fees.
The federal agents backed down after an armed standoff.
“It is a rejection of any kind of democratic compromise and the endorsement of the use of weapons and violence to get your way,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a coalition member.
Emerick said the Oath Keepers do not condone violence and require that guards be vetted and pass a background check. She said she thought critics might be basing their opinions on “other incidents around the country.”
More than 100 protesters gathered at the BLM offices in Medford last month, prompting the agency to close its operations for the day.
Local community groups say some residents were scared when out-of-state guards were recruited to watch the mine.
“It seems like they’re digging in and they’re trying to stay,” Jessica Campbell, organizer for the Rural Organizing Project, an Oregon activists group, said of the Oath Keepers.
(Reporting by Shelby Sebens; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Daniel Wallis and Eric Beech)
http://news.yahoo.com/groups-warn-oregon-mine-militia-dispute-threatens-democracy-040721303.html
“It is a rejection of any kind of democratic compromise and the endorsement of the use of weapons and violence to get your way,” said Mark Potok (Mark Piece of Shiite) of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a coalition member.
Ha Ha Ha Haaaa!!…..
We told you so…
Imagine that the commies would portray this as some sort of heinous action due to “militias”. Good thing Henry saw through the subterfuge and called it out. My guess is: deliberate setup for propaganda & subsequent betrayal of real American Nationals. Let the blue lodge take care of their own.
There can NEVER be “democratic compromise” regarding the yielding of our GOD-GIVEN rights and responsibilities, especially to an alien, Satanically-inspired conglomerate of perverts and criminals Hell-bent (literally) on enslaving all those unwilling to stand up for Truth and Freedom.
Also… As if the usurpers don’t “endorse the use of weapons and violence to get their way.”
Time those folks understood we are not gutless sheep waiting to be butchered, but honorable patriots who eschew the idea of a global government at the helm of a worldwide institution of slavery.
WE WILL NOT SUBMIT.
WE WILL RELIEVE EVERY ONE OF YOU OF THE BURDEN OF BREATHING OUR FREE AIR.
YAH Bless This Republic;
No king but King Jesus.
I wouldn’t trust the oathkeepers to guard my outhouse.
heh, notice how Potluck just had to throw his 2 cents of bs in…
One thing that really “Gets yah!” about these stupid pin heads and people like them who think some how you can retain your freedom by making NICE with a bunch of Parana. Sooner or later they WILL bight you as a certainty. We just can’t listen to fools. They get in your way push them aside. They try to block you knock them down hard. When war finally breaks out and they try to be human shields for the enemy of freedom and our way of life, then so be it.
Bottom line is we can not afford to suffer fools one nano second. They are part of the problem because our being nice to them and letting them try doing things their way is what has gotten our country with a taltalitarian lid on it. In fact they are the WORST form of enemy. They are what Markus Cicero wrote about. You know? TRAITORS!!!!!
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero