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Mesquite Flavored Petulance

Call me a Western Romantic Fetishist, but to me, nothing says putting it to the man, the government that is, like hoisting a prodigious denim packed ass onto an ATV mount and blasting through the remnants of long gone Ancestral Puebloans. Also doing this in accordance with your local government man, commissioner Phil Lyman’s recommendations. It’s sort of sticking it to the government though the use of handy suggestions from the government. This needs to be done in a place of incredible beauty, so gorgeous in fact that even the name strays out of the mouth in all the ways that feel good. Recapture Canyon absolutely floats off the lips. Sure, let’s muck up that place.

The site had been made off limits for vehicles after an ATV trail that assaulted the creek back and forth was discovered. This somehow became part of the broader quest for millionaire rancher welfare rights. All is connected my friend, and the ever-willing dusty puppets straddled their ATVs in a deliberate attempt to create turmoil.

But here’s the thing. It didn’t happen. No stand-off, sorry. Because the government doesn’t give a shit about this hokey motor show. If anything it’s a happy distraction. Because it’s not real dissent. There’s no threat to anything that the upper echelons care about, namely lands composed of unquantifiable beauty or the sensitivities of less than white descendants of genocide. And the participants simply enjoy lording over this lovely indifferent land that will outlast them. You can’t love these places until that is accepted. They don’t accept it. Words like sovereignty and dominion are heard often out west. And there’s a menacing undercurrent that most of this is being stoked simply to open the idea of private ownership in regard to these last bastions of common grounds, of wilderness. Because people like the Kochs want them. They are nothing if not masters of perverting base instincts in a manner beneficial to them.

Now I did read about Homeland Security showing up at a local Utah parade in a tank. I really have no idea why they would do something like that other than they probably like tearing around in that nasty, destructive machine and it was an excuse to do just that. It was cited as a reason for some of the ill-will floating about in the area from the locals. How horrifying it must have been to see overpowering aggressors flaunting their omnipotence in something so revered as a small town parade. Almost as horrible as people riding ATVs though burial grounds, maybe. For some reason the sensitivities of the beleaguered white patriots are magical and worthy, while the feelings of the truly oppressed are treated with scorn and yeah, ridicule.

The complaint being brought forth by these individuals seems to focus on what they term “government overreach”.  Oddly enough I’ve not heard about any coordinated protests by Bundy fans into the ultimate of overreach–that of data mining. To my way of thinking, this is the apex of overreach, ultimate mind patrolling. Every call, every note typed and sent. It’s all being pushed through the mining process, catching everything. Sluice boxes churning. But these folks in Utah don’t seem to care so much since the biggest repository of its kind is in that state now—near Bluffdale to be exact. It wouldn’t be a hardship for them to ride an ATV there; it’s nearby. Well, sort of (western distances). It’s the place that took about a billion and a half dollars to build. Anybody show up at that groundbreaking from this group? If so, I heartily apologize. I don’t think I’m going to have to send an “I’m sorry ATV freedom rider for my wrong assumptions” card. And don’t get me wrong, I’d really like to send one. They are the only cards I have left to get rid of from my Dollar Store greeting card variety pack.

Just wondering if any of these patriots know or care who Cecily McMillan is? It sounds like she got grabbed and clobbered and might be in jail for 7 years just for reacting to an assault–it was during a NY Occupy protest. Overreach onto her breast by cop. She’s at Riker’s now. Just one of the many brutal (likely coordinated) disproportionate responses to Occupy in cities across the nation. But not to worry patriots, there won’t be a decree from above to the BLM or local law enforcement to come down hard on Recapture Canyon ATV parades. I think it’s more than obvious why. And I have a notion the people who participated in this ATV caper didn’t have much sympathy for Occupy protesters. If this really was about what they profess, there might be a kinship there.

So all I can hope for are scorpions, upcoming monsoon lightning, flash floods and rattlers. Because the Feds and friends probably won’t ever care about protecting that land adequately. You know….they’re just too busy listening in Bluffdale.

Kathleen Wallace writes out of the US Midwest.