15 Minutes Later

Rachel Maddow put the Cliven Bundy Show in perspective last night, and did it so well I want to replay it here.

The shorter version is that Bundy's bizarre statements about how the "federal government doesn't exist" and why he asked the sheriff to take the BLM agents guns away, is part and parcel of his racism.  Bundy's ideas were not, it turns out, his own confused ramblings, but the ideas behind "Posse Comitatus" and going back to Reconstruction.  I'll let her take you through it step by step; she really does a very good job of it.  But to make it simple:  Bundy's ideas about government and the BLM and even grazing fees, are part and parcel of his racism and is defense of slavery, and are ideas that have been swirling around in this country since the post-Civil War era.

This also explains why so many people flocked to Bundy's ranch with guns, to defend his cattle from the BLM.  And why Bundy's 15 minutes are up.

Indeed, the most interesting part of this to me is that Bundy was clearly convinced if he just used this public platform the BLM inadvertently gave him to espouse his view, the country would rally to his side.  All he had to do was get a megaphone loud enough to make his voice heard.

How many times have I heard that argument used on the internet to say that's how we could motivate voters to finally elect the "right" public officials to run government in the "right" way?  If only we had the "megaphone" (i.e, something to counter FoxNews and the "MSM", et al.).