New Campaign Turns Malheur Occupation Into an Occupy-a-Thon for Burns Paiute Tribe, Gun Control

"Every day the occupiers stay, they are funding organizations that are completely contrary to the occupiers’ beliefs."

By Lizzy Acker

Starting tomorrow, a new campaign will attempt to use social puppeteering to get the armed seditionists to leave Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The campaign, a personal project organized by "special assistant" to Mayor Charlie Hales Zach Klonoski and his older brother Jake Klonoski, has turned the occupation of the Harney County refuge into an "occupy-a-thon," meaning people pledge to donate a certain amount per day of the occupation to four organizations: Friends of Malheur NWR, Burns Paiute tribe, Americans for Responsible Action, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Jake and Zach Klonoski are sons of Chief U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken, who happens to be the judge who resentenced the Hammonds to prison back in October.

The brothers are calling their protest of the protest "Getting the Occupiers of Historic Oregon Malheur Evicted (G.O.H.O.M.E.)." According to a press release, this style of protest of a protest actually comes from Germany:

Zach Klonoski says his brother came up with the idea of applying this to the Harney County occupation after reading a Washington Post story about the Wunsiedel protest.

"Every meter they marched, they were funding their own demise," said Zach Klonoski by telephone. "Every day the occupiers stay, they are funding organizations that are completely contrary to the occupiers' beliefs."

The brothers picked the organizations carefully to be as obnoxious as possible to the Bundy clan: Friends of Malheur NWR supports the refuge, the Burns Paiute tribe has the most reasonable claim of any group of humans to the land in Harney County, Americans for Responsible Action supports gun control ("we thought they would really hate that quite a bit," says the younger Klonoski), and the Southern Poverty Law Center monitors extremist groups.

The brothers, native Oregonians from Eugene, started the campaign because they see the occupation by out-of-staters as anti-Oregon and wanted to give actual Oregonians a chance to do something about it.

Zach Klonoski quotes Oregon Democratic Congressman Peter DeFazio: "'In my state of Oregon, we abide by the laws. Yeah, we disagree over a lot of federal policies, but we abide by the laws.'"

The Klonoski brothers hope that by raising money for these groups, they can help bring about a peaceful end to the standoff in Harney County. "Every Oregonian who jumps on board is standing for rational, reasonable debate rather than domestic terrorism by this militant group," says Zach Klonoski.

So far, the brothers have attracted more than 550 pledgers and have raised over $23,000.

"At the very minimum, it's going to go up by $1,300" a day, says Zach Klonoski.

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