The cattle industry is an extractive industry, and they are aligned with other extractive industries – mining and oil – in trying to get their hands on more federal land. Two major capitalists are leading this push:
One is the Koch Brothers. As journalist Chris Zinda explains “the Koch foundation of course is interested in public lands because they wish to extract anything they can from it…. Koch Industries’ agricultural holdings are among the largest in the nation. Their Matador Cattle Company that operates adjacent to Yellowstone National Park is #7 in the country and they also own large ranches in both Kansas and Texas. Their holdings also include the timber giant Georgia-Pacific.”
The other capitalist enterprise is the Mormon church (Latter Day Saints or LDS). The Mormon Church holdings
Mormon Church holdings
LDS, for example, owns Deseret Management Corporation (DMC) and AgReserves. Their ranches include a 288,000 spread in Nebraska. DMC reportedly has up to 3,000 employees and has an annual revenue of about $1.2 billion.
These two forces, one of which ran a candidate for US president four years ago (Mit Romney), have collaborated closely. They jointly organized and ran the far right wing John Birch Society. Koch is the main funder for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and through ALEC as well as through the Koch Brothers’ American for Prosperity they support the American Lands Council. One article in Counterpunch explains that the Mormons and the Koch brothers “have shared common economic and political ideologies for decades.” It is no accident that Cliven and Ammon Bundy are Mormons.
Economic Interests Behind Malheur Occupation
