14
Wednesday, January 13, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
COnCERT: Show is first
in series presented by
Sisters Folk Festival
Continued from page 3
“Paradise” follows the
band’s acclaimed 2013
release, “The Muse,” which
was recorded almost entirely
live around a tree of micro-
phones in Zac Brown’s
Southern Ground studio.
Hailed previously by the New
York Times for their “grip-
ping” vocals, and by the LA
Times for their “taught musi-
cianship,” the live setting
proved to be a remarkable
showcase for the brothers’
live chemistry and charis-
matic magnetism.
Ta k i n g a d i f f e r e n t
approach to their sixth studio
album, Paradise was recorded
at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye
studio in Nashville. The deci-
sion to record in Nashville
was no coincidence, as
Paradise marks the first
album written with the entire
band living in Music City.
Advance prices for indi-
vidual tickets are $25; if
available, individual show
tickets are $5 more at the
door. Tickets can be pur-
chased online at www.sisters
folkfestival.org/tickets or by
calling 541-549-4979. Series
passes are $60 for adults and
$40 for youth 18 and under.
That series continues on
Saturday, February 27, with
Bumper Jacksons, from
Washington, DC. Folding
sounds of jazz, early blues,
old-time music, and coun-
try swing into an exhilarat-
ing repertoire of modern
American roots music, the
DC-based band has brought a
hard-driving party energy to
countless dance floors.
Concluding the series is
Massachusetts-based quar-
tet Darlingside on Thursday,
March 10. After two success-
ful years as the fan favorite
at the sold-out Sisters Folk
Festival, SFF decided to
bring them back for the third
show of the series.
For more information on
the 2016 Sisters Folk Festival
Winter Concert Series visit
sistersfolkfestival.org/
winter-concert-series.
Armed takeover puts feds in tough spot
By Gene Johnson
Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) — The
armed takeover of a remote
Oregon nature preserve has
put federal officials in a tough
spot: Should they confront
the occupiers or lay off, given
that the public faces no immi-
nent harm?
The former risks blood-
shed. The latter risks embold-
ening anti-government groups
and possibly giving the
impression that authorities
treat the white armed anti-
government activists with
more deference than, say,
young black men in the city.
A look at some of the key
issues surrounding the fed-
eral response to the takeover
at Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge south of Burns,
Oregon:
Race and religion
About 20 people are
occupying the refuge in the
frigid high desert to pro-
test the prison sentences of
two ranchers who set fire to
federal land. They want the
property turned over to local
authorities so people can use
it free of U.S. oversight.
President Barack Obama
said Monday that federal
authorities were monitoring
the situation, but agents made
no apparent moves to sur-
round the property or confront
the group — an approach that
reflected lessons learned from
bloody standoffs at Ruby
Ridge, Idaho, and Waco,
Texas, in the early 1990s.
But it also prompted com-
plaints from many observ-
ers who suggested the gov-
ernment’s response would
have been swifter and more
severe had the occupants been
Muslim or other minorities.
“Every time something
like this occurs, we use the
phrase, ‘If a Muslim had done
it,’ and we imagine the com-
pletely different response that
would follow,” said Ibrahim
Hooper, spokesman for the
Council on American-Islamic
Relations. “You don’t have to
stretch your imagination to
come up with a different sce-
nario if these weren’t white
Christians.”
“There seems to be some-
what of a reluctance to think
white people are as danger-
ous as people of color,” said
Heidi Beirich, director of the
Intelligence Project at the
Southern Poverty Law Center,
which tracks hate groups.
But other observers sug-
gested that from a tactical
standpoint, the government’s
cautious response would
make sense no matter who
was holed up in the govern-
ment building in the reserve.
“These guys are out in
the middle of nowhere, and
they haven’t threatened any-
body that I know of,” said
Jim Glennon, a longtime
police commander who now
owns the Illinois-based law
enforcement training organi-
zation Calibre Press. “There’s
no hurry. If there’s not an
immediate threat to anyone’s
life, why create a situation
where there would be?”
Instead, he and others
expected the FBI to use a
negotiator to try to persuade
the group to leave peacefully.
Anti-government
momentum
Among those leading
the occupiers was Ammon
Bundy, the son of Nevada
rancher Cliven Bundy. The
elder Bundy made headlines
in 2014, when hundreds of
armed anti-government activ-
ists rallied to his defense after
federal authorities started
seizing his cattle over more
than $1 million in unpaid
grazing fees.
In Cliven Bundy’s case,
federal authorities and Las
Vegas police retreated and
let him have his cattle back
rather than escalate the
confrontation. While offi-
cials have said that federal
authorities are investigat-
ing, no one has been charged
with a crime, even though
authorities said some of
those involved had trained
their weapons on police. The
FBI declined to comment
Monday.
The Southern Poverty
Law Center was quick to say
that the failure to hold any-
one accountable was a major
victory that emboldened anti-
government groups around
the country and led directly
to the situation in Oregon.
“They got away with
something pretty serious,”
Beirich said. “You have a
bunch of emboldened people
who think weapons can be
used to settle their disputes
with the federal government.”
Michael Barkun, an emer-
itus professor at Syracuse
University who has studied
extremist groups, agreed that
not confronting the Oregon
group could embolden others.
On the other hand, however,
some extremists crave such a
fight.
“You can say, well, a nego-
tiated settlement emboldens
them,” he said. “But by the
same token it deprives them
of a confrontation that some
of them want.”
Terrorism or trespass-
ing?
Some people took their
criticisms a step further, argu-
ing that if a radical Muslim
group had seized the property,
many would call it terrorism.
But John McKay, the for-
mer top federal prosecutor in
western Washington and now
a professor of national secu-
rity law at Seattle University,
did not see it that way. The
federal definition of terrorism
requires an act “dangerous
to human life” that appears
intended to intimidate civil-
ians or influence government
policy.
“I’m not sure what the ter-
rorism is. I don’t see a violent
act,” he said. “They’re tres-
passing and trying to change
policy.”
Wayne State University
law professor Peter J.
Henning said their actions
more closely meet the defi-
nition of sedition, which
includes conspiring to over-
throw the U.S. government,
oppose it by force or seize
its property. Sedition charges
are typically reserved for the
most severe cases, he noted,
including that of Sheik Omar
Abdel Rahman, the “blind
Muslim cleric” who was
linked to the 1993 World
Trade Center bombing. The
sedition charge was for a plot
to attack the United Nations
and other landmarks.
In 2010, the Justice
Department brought sedi-
tion charges against mem-
bers of the Hutaree militia
in Michigan, alleging that
they planned to kill a police
officer and then attack those
who attended the funeral.
A judge dismissed those
charges, saying the evidence
did not prove a concrete plan
to oppose the authority of the
federal government by force.
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