Ursula K. Le Guin Writes Letter about Ammon Bundy’s “Right-Wing Loonybirds” Oregon Occupation

Earlier this month, an armed gang led by Ammon Bundy illegally seized control of federal buildings at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Federal agencies have been approaching the occupation with caution, mostly allowing the Bundy gang to do whatever they want without punishment and preventing the local residents from using the public refuge. And Ursula K. Le Guin is getting sick of it.

Writing to The Oregonian to complain about the paper “parroting the meaningless rants of a flock of Right-Winged Loonybirds infesting the refuge,” the famous Oregon resident and science fiction author concisely laid out why the Bundy gang are no freedom fighters:

Ammon Bundy and his bullyboys aren’t trying to free federal lands, but to hold them hostage. I can’t go to the Malheur refuge now, though as a citizen of the United States, I own it and have the freedom of it. That’s what public land is: land that belongs to the public — me, you, every law-abiding American. The people it doesn’t belong to and who don’t belong there are those who grabbed it by force of arms, flaunting their contempt for the local citizens.

Of course, whether local and federal law enforcement will actually do anything to open the public land back to public remains to be seen.

(h/t The New Republic)