Oregon standoff – an American story

The long-suffering Bundy family is again in the focus of the American media. In 2014, its members, with the support of the armed volunteers from all over the United States have opposed the federal government. Then they talked about the protection of their own property. This time the situation is somewhat different.

The Occasion

Formally, the people who occupied parts of the Federal reserve in Oregon on January 2nd are on their own grounds. They need to give federal land to local farmers, loggers and miners. The difference is the initiators came from other states. At the head of the armed group there is Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy, who defended his ranch in 2014.

Formally, they are defending the interests of the Hammond family, whose members are in jail, who were first accused of arson, and then terrorism. But the Hammonds themselves now refuse assistance from volunteers. Despite this, people of Bundy continue confrontation with the feds.

The people who nobody hears

Armed men from all the states went to the aid of Bundy, despite Bundy saying that he did not need help. The leader of the occupation movement said they were "not needed, but things can still change”. According to the media, Ammon Bandy told the leaders of the militia movement to leave, but previously he addressed all the Americans through YouTube to support his actions if they want to be free citizens in a free country.

The fact that this call received an immediate response from the people from all over the country, demonstrates an important feature of the present American society: the society has a large stratum of people who traditionally do not trust the federal government. American elites, in turn, do not do anything to regain the trust of these people. They are depicted as the lunatics and psychopaths in the media, ridiculed in the popular shows, but none of the politicians are trying to ignore them. The exception is Donald Trump, but his growing popularity is due to the fact that he listens to white working class males of conservative orientation.

The whole policy of the United States in recent years, external and internal, is built on ignoring the vast majority of inhabitants of the country. They do not like pointless and costly wars, did not want Obamacare, do not like gay marriage and oppose the infringement of their right to bear arms, but federal authorities prefer to ignore them. The so-called militia is only the vanguard of the American silent majority. It is not surprising that the US establishment considers the extreme right to be a much more dangerous threat than the Muslim fanatics.

Genuine American values

Members of the Bundy group are people who think that they can throw an armed challenge to the authorities, since they infringe on their individual freedom. "Militia" is a unique American phenomenon, which would be impossible in any other country in the world. The peculiarity of it is that these people protect the values on which the United States was founded: freedom, individuality, independence, self-government and religion.
It is significant that some of the armed Bundy groups, and Ammon Bundy himself, are Mormons, thus belong to one of the most notorious American sects. In the words of Ammon Bundy, he began leading the occupation after receiving a divine message from God ordering him to do so. The explanation is possible only in the United States, where presidents have used it before.

The situation is paradoxical; the US government opposes those who are the most pronounced bearers of the values on which the state and society was built on. The federal government ignores the social stratum that has made America, created a unique identity for American civilization. In this you can see the sunset of the US or a sign that its rulers are no longer linked to the United States themselves. They only care about the global agenda.

Lone wolfs against the system

American social psychology is individualistic. Cult heroes, who, by themselves, save the world in a hostile environment, dominate the public mind. That is why the militia is not able to offer any effective collective action. People act separately, under the influence of spontaneous ecstatic revelations and other individual factors, and therefore are not capable of organizing a series of measures to counteract the authorities.

Redneck-Heideggerians

Nevertheless, the militia is what undermines the hegemony of American liberal elites, contesting the order they have established within in the US, and disputes their forged America from the perspective of authentic America, without an admixture of dangerous European values and concepts brought by highbrow emigrants from Europe since the 1930’s. Freedom and global Empire cannot coexist.

To be a pole in a multipolar system, the civilization must return to its roots, to be itself, exists authentically. American rednecks in fact challenge the world system philosophically. It is the challenge of American Dasein, if we dare to use the language of the last great philosopher Martin Heidegger.