[In an effort to understand the views, beliefs, and rhetoric of the protesters of the Malheur Occupation, we explored the primary texts written by the Bundy’s and others. Here, I examine a piece by Cliven Bundy published on January 29th, 2016.]
Background: Who is Cliven Bundy?
In short, Cliven Bundy is a rancher who lives in Nevada. He is also the the father of fourteen, including recently-arrested Ammon Bundy of the Malheur Occupation. In April of 2014, Cliven Bundy’s 20+ years refusal to pay the fee to graze his cows on federal land came to a head as government officials attempted to impound approximately 900 head of Bundy’s cattle (see Wikipedia page here and news story here). This legal skirmish resulted in an armed standoff between protesters advocating on behalf of Bundy and federal agents. Bundy’s protest against federal control of western land is connected in an extensive web of anti-government movements and events specific to the American West, described here. While the Bundy Standoff of 2014 shares the thematic connections of opposing federal control and enforcement of western land with the January 2016 Malheur Occupation, the link between these two events is strongly familial. Although Cliven Bundy didn’t play a large role in the action at Malheur, he expressed his support for the protesters and outrage against the shootout which resulted in the death of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum on January 26, 2016 in this news release found on the blog of the Bundy Ranch.
LIBERTY FREEDOM FOR GOD WE STAND! : Bundy’s Press Release
Word cloud of most-used words in Bundy’s Press Release, generated by Voyant Tools
In terms of “big words, Bundy’s press release is chock full. Using highly Christian language, Bundy condemns the US Government for major abuses of power at the expense of ranchers and producers, those who he refers to as 
“patriots.” In these two initial paragraphs of his press release pictured left, Bundy aligns himself with two bodies of work which govern the rest of his argument. The first paragraph establishes God and the gospels of Jesus Christ as his guide and the key to understanding the “proper form of government.” The second is the US Constitution, in which Bundy proclaims steadfast belief. Bundy holds both Jesus Christ and the Constitution as gospel, scripturalizing these religious and governmental documents as the unshakable foundation of his position. His tone rings like a manifesto, calling all those who believe in Jesus and all those who believe in the Constitution towards his side with the promise of righteousness. He seeks support by using “big words” with big followings: those who identify as Christian and those who identify as American. With God and the Founding Fathers staunchly on his side from the get-go, anyone who disagrees henceforth is guilty of heresy and anti-Americanism. In this way, he argues for cattle ranching, grazing privileges, and the right for the individual to manage public lands by beginning far above the tangible into the realm of abstraction, religion, and national myth.
While Bundy’s introduction merits a more thorough analysis of his word choice (see Lex’s discussion of his use of “freedom” here) and structural strategies of persuasion, I wish to turn to Bundy’s use of irony in the next section of his press release. As Sara writes in her post about the Oath Keepers statement, the protesters see the government “as a joke… but a joke with power.” In order to demonstrate the deception and corruption Bundy associates with the federal government, he appropriates the voice and point of the view of his opponents. He paints LaVoy Finicum as a martyr, “assassinated” by the US government in order to quiet his protests and silence the occupation. After calling the US government “wicked” and “evil” for this offense, Bundy then embodies the side of the government and offers a list of justifications for federal control of land and people that highlight the corruption, or the “work of the devil”) that Bundy perceives. This list of justifications sounds like something out of Orwell’s 1984. Bundy wants the reader to believe that the US government wants the people to believe that “all is well” and the US is prosperous and free. This is the façade that Bundy postures as the US government’s bureaucratic agenda, an effect created by the use of situational irony.
This is a powerful paragraph, reminiscent of a fear-invoking sermon about the deceptive mischief and corruption of the devil. However, Bundy reaches something oddly resonant for those of us studying environmental theory. At the end of the paragraph, after he has established the “unlimited power” of the bureaucracy, Bundy states:
We control, or at least we are about to control, the environment. We control all the endangered species of the creatures and plants. We control the elements of the earth and all the markets of the commodities of this earth. Yes, all is well in Zion!”
This excerpt reads like a soundbite from classic doomsday environmentalism. Here, “we” masquerades as Bundy’s version of the US government self-proclaiming “control” over “the environment.” Control, used here as a verb, according to definition 3a in the Oxford English Dictionary means “to exercise power or authority over; to determine the behaviour or action of, to direct or command; to regulate or govern” (OED, “control”). Throughout the entire text of Bundy’s release, “control” is found 8 times and “power” is found 12 times. Bundy repeats “control” over and over in the final sentences of this ironic paragraph, reinforcing that the federal government takes pride in how it “controls” and overpowers people and land. Its interesting that in Bundy’s attempt to vilify the federal government he describes land management so in depth, from water to endangered species. From the heavenly sphere of Jesus Christ and the Constitution, Bundy begins to identify a more specific realm. As a rancher, Bundy certainly participates in the control of land, water, animals, other aspects of the “environment” that he describes here. He doesn’t reject on principle the concept of humans controlling the land yet he discerns something eerie and corrupt about government officials doing so. He employs a criticism of the human/nature binary to injure the federal government, but from what we know about the Bundy platform he is not opposed to the human control of “the environment” on principle. This amounts to a sort of philosophical fallacy, where Bundy’s position seems to contradict itself. However, Bundy is probably not trying to make a philosophical, theory-based claim about the inherent relationship between humans and the land. He only comments on this large philosophical question via his personification and demonization of the US government. He is making a deeply personal claim, based on his gospel truths (and economic, self-preserving motives).
So what?
Its easy for someone like me- a critical, secular, liberal arts student who supports wildlife refuges and federal lands primarily for recreation opportunities and aesthetic purposes- to dismiss Bundy and his press release and his protests as babbling rural right-wing extremism. However, I am also someone who has a strong academic interest in land management of the American West. The generations of Bundy men and their compatriots are vocal and important actors in the desert landscapes of Nevada, south-eastern Oregon, and likewise in my home region of southern Idaho. The unique and valid perspectives of ranchers like Bundy and his family can be found in the narratives they spin, either in a formal manifesto like Cliven Bundy’s press release or in the comments on their Facebook page. Building on our discussions about values, its helpful to mine these narratives for clues about the authors’ worldviews. The tricky part about narratives, however, is that they are subjective. I wonder what the Book of Mormon says about wilderness. I wonder how my interpretation of such a text would compare to Bundy’s? To the staff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge? There is no doubt that Bundy’s narratives, self-proclaimed as patriotic and devout, make a lot of sense to a very specific group of people who feel oppressed and endangered by the US government. As we look ahead to our next unit on environmental justice, I anticipate that the Bundy narrative will clash with the common narrative of environmental injustice and I wonder how we can fairly or peacefully reconcile these perspectives or if they are indeed irreconcilable.