What's really at stake in the Malheur standoff

The key point:

> Ammon Bundy (I did not meet him during my visit to the refuge) may or may not know the history of land use in the West, but there will be no repeating the free-grazing era of the late 19th century. Not in the fastest-growing developed nation on earth, on a planet that will soon play host to nine or 10 billion human beings. Nothing will be free. What the militants are asking for is almost exactly what more mainstream political leaders like Utah state Rep. Rob Bishop or the American Lands Council, now headed by Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder, say they want, too. The Malheur occupation, with the incessant press coverage in its early weeks, was the soapbox for disseminating payloads of misinformation about America’s public lands, about their management, about how and why we have them. Every soundbite was delivered to further the goal of privatization.