“These parts ain't big enough for me and you, partner!” We’ve all heard that in dozens of old western movies. What was once called “The Bureau of Livestock and Mines” eventually evolved into “The Bureau of Land Management.” No matter what you call it, the BLM is the largest land holder in the United States; bigger than McDonalds! You'd think they were McDonalds from all the cattle they steal. While people like LaVoy Finicum are killed, and Cliven Bundy is jailed, the Greenpeace Hippies sing the praises of the National Park Service. I hope they have a pic-a-nic basket Boo!
With sway over 264 million acres, mostly used for grazing, that was the land “left over” after everyone from homesteaders to land developers took what they wanted. Ask yourself, what happens when you hit the Pacific, run off all the Indians, and there’s no more land to “acquire” to manage. Why, you just turn around and start working back the other way, that’s what! A little gerrymandering, and a few guns, and them ranchers are no problem, just like them Injuns! And, although it's all shrouded in secrecy (never seen the government do that) a certain amount of kickback goes into BLM management. Let’s see, oil and gas receipts, timber receipts, salvage receipts, things like that, and there's more pork in there than a bar-b-q pit on “Juneteenth!” With all this going on, the general public doesn't even know who they are, until, of course, they shoot somebody. Oh, my bad, they don’t shoot anybody, they have the FBI do it for them. The FBI is the BLM’s Luca Brasi. One more thing; the BLM loses money, but it's hard to tell because they don't keep up with things like revenues vs expenses.
Now where did this boondoggle come from? You guessed it; the Congress! The current BLM was born in 1946 in a merging of the General Land Office and something called the Grazing Service. The dichotomy of these two entities, one mandating land disposal and the other land stewardship gives us this schizophrenic little wench we enjoy today. The General Land Office was to dispose of hundreds of millions of acres which had been “Acquired” from the Indians, Wounded Knee, Little Big Horn, you know, things like that. They had treaties, kinda like the one that brought Texas into the Union. By 1860 they had sold 300 million acres for pennies on the dollar to anyone who came through the door, all but the Indians, that is. Must have looked like Black Friday at Walmart! Congress designed the whole shebang to give small farmers and war veterans a fair shot, but, you know what happens during a situation where the government tries to level the playing field. So here come the mines, and when it was all over they left an empty hole. Kinda like an ex-wife.
Then, we have the Grazing Service, enacted by the Taylor Grazing Act in 1939, because them cows was a eating just too much grass! The government worries about grass a lot, but I digress. Well, Western folk wanted privatization, and, of course, the Yankees leaned more toward a more public, social concept. This mess cost so much money that in 1946 Congress gave them a 50 percent pay cut. Oh, and they moved the offices from Washington DC to Salt Lake City so the cattlemen could have more direct control. Now, remember they stole all this land, just in case you forgot.
When the two organizations were combined in 1946, the BLM took over running this mess until they could unload it, and the cattlemen thought this was all temporary until they could get a deed. Wouldn't you just know it? The BLM didn't go away. Matter of fact, in 1976 Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act which ended the “disposal” part. All, but the cattlemen, whom they are trying to dispose of today. Shall we take a boat ride down the Red River?
Rivers wander. Now there's two kinds of wandering. There's “gradual” and then “avulsion.” Gradual, and the borders just “go with the flow.” Avulsion is where the river jumps its banks and charts its own course. The BLM picks and chooses which of these to apply according to its particular needs, I.e. about A 116 mile stretch round about a half a mile wide running along the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you the BLM, under the Acquired Mineral Leasing Act of 1947 get to allocate minerals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they don't have that many areas where they do it, but the fact is they can, and that's the problem. So, they couldn't make any money chopping down trees and Indians, maybe they'd fare better in the oil business.
Under that land is a whole bunch of sandy oil that can be fracked out, and all you gotta do is drain the Red River, cause it takes a wee bit of water, cause if you don't have a massive amount of water you get “fracked up.” Of course that don't leave much for the cattle, but no matter, those cows eat too much grass anyway. So, they need to push the cattlemen off the land, set up the drills, drain the Red River, and go to the bank. . The cattlemen respectively disagree, but let me give you a formula. BLM + FBI = Somebody gets shot! “These parts ain't big enough for me and you, partner.” Where's Billy the Kid when you need him. This is just a range war folks, and it looks like the sheep herders is a winning!
With sway over 264 million acres, mostly used for grazing, that was the land “left over” after everyone from homesteaders to land developers took what they wanted. Ask yourself, what happens when you hit the Pacific, run off all the Indians, and there’s no more land to “acquire” to manage. Why, you just turn around and start working back the other way, that’s what! A little gerrymandering, and a few guns, and them ranchers are no problem, just like them Injuns! And, although it's all shrouded in secrecy (never seen the government do that) a certain amount of kickback goes into BLM management. Let’s see, oil and gas receipts, timber receipts, salvage receipts, things like that, and there's more pork in there than a bar-b-q pit on “Juneteenth!” With all this going on, the general public doesn't even know who they are, until, of course, they shoot somebody. Oh, my bad, they don’t shoot anybody, they have the FBI do it for them. The FBI is the BLM’s Luca Brasi. One more thing; the BLM loses money, but it's hard to tell because they don't keep up with things like revenues vs expenses.
Now where did this boondoggle come from? You guessed it; the Congress! The current BLM was born in 1946 in a merging of the General Land Office and something called the Grazing Service. The dichotomy of these two entities, one mandating land disposal and the other land stewardship gives us this schizophrenic little wench we enjoy today. The General Land Office was to dispose of hundreds of millions of acres which had been “Acquired” from the Indians, Wounded Knee, Little Big Horn, you know, things like that. They had treaties, kinda like the one that brought Texas into the Union. By 1860 they had sold 300 million acres for pennies on the dollar to anyone who came through the door, all but the Indians, that is. Must have looked like Black Friday at Walmart! Congress designed the whole shebang to give small farmers and war veterans a fair shot, but, you know what happens during a situation where the government tries to level the playing field. So here come the mines, and when it was all over they left an empty hole. Kinda like an ex-wife.
Then, we have the Grazing Service, enacted by the Taylor Grazing Act in 1939, because them cows was a eating just too much grass! The government worries about grass a lot, but I digress. Well, Western folk wanted privatization, and, of course, the Yankees leaned more toward a more public, social concept. This mess cost so much money that in 1946 Congress gave them a 50 percent pay cut. Oh, and they moved the offices from Washington DC to Salt Lake City so the cattlemen could have more direct control. Now, remember they stole all this land, just in case you forgot.
When the two organizations were combined in 1946, the BLM took over running this mess until they could unload it, and the cattlemen thought this was all temporary until they could get a deed. Wouldn't you just know it? The BLM didn't go away. Matter of fact, in 1976 Congress passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act which ended the “disposal” part. All, but the cattlemen, whom they are trying to dispose of today. Shall we take a boat ride down the Red River?
Rivers wander. Now there's two kinds of wandering. There's “gradual” and then “avulsion.” Gradual, and the borders just “go with the flow.” Avulsion is where the river jumps its banks and charts its own course. The BLM picks and chooses which of these to apply according to its particular needs, I.e. about A 116 mile stretch round about a half a mile wide running along the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you the BLM, under the Acquired Mineral Leasing Act of 1947 get to allocate minerals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they don't have that many areas where they do it, but the fact is they can, and that's the problem. So, they couldn't make any money chopping down trees and Indians, maybe they'd fare better in the oil business.
Under that land is a whole bunch of sandy oil that can be fracked out, and all you gotta do is drain the Red River, cause it takes a wee bit of water, cause if you don't have a massive amount of water you get “fracked up.” Of course that don't leave much for the cattle, but no matter, those cows eat too much grass anyway. So, they need to push the cattlemen off the land, set up the drills, drain the Red River, and go to the bank. . The cattlemen respectively disagree, but let me give you a formula. BLM + FBI = Somebody gets shot! “These parts ain't big enough for me and you, partner.” Where's Billy the Kid when you need him. This is just a range war folks, and it looks like the sheep herders is a winning!
No comments:
Post a Comment