Paxety Pages

"Economic development," he said, "which is a legitimate public purpose according to the United States Supreme Court."

The court last month ruled 5-4 in a Connecticut case that governments can buy land from an unwilling seller and give it to another developer to boost the tax base or create jobs.

The Connecticut case involved Suzette Kelo says she has only begun to fight for her home in the Ft. Trumble area of New London.. Florida Cracker reprints her letter.  I fear another Oscar Lorick with a worse ending. Oscar Who? Let me tell you a story.

It really began back in 1865 or so. Sherman's March To The Sea missed what was then Pulaski County, Georgia. The Middle Georgia area was just a little far south and west to face the northern troops. But with the end of the war, chattel slavery ended there as it did everywhere else in the South.  The plantation owner, stuck with a lot of land and no one to work it, carved up his property and gave tracts to his former slaves. One of those was Oscar's great-grandfather.

Fast forward to 1986. Over the years, Pulaski County had been split up - the part east of the river, including the Lorick property, was put into Bleckley County with the county seat being in Cochran - only a few miles away. Oscar was a farmer with all that covers - he was a hard worker, but had not been exposed to a lot of book-learning. High finance was not his strong suit,so he followed along, taking the advice of the town banker.  Farmers at that time, as I understand it, were encouraged to borrow money on  their property as a way to get money for the next year's crop. No one taught them new, more efficient methods of agriculture.  And to make matters worse, Congress passed bills that set the prices farmers could collect - prices that were frequently below the cost of production.  The farmers got deeper and deeper in debt. A lot of farmers got into trouble, and Oscar was one of them.

Another character enters the picture - Tommy Kersey. Tommy ran various farm related businesses in another Middle Georgia community, Unadilla, through the 70s and 80s.  He had a nice spread, a big brick house, and a few head of cattle, if I remember correctly. He had a son who played second guitar in a heavy metal band, which is how I got to know the family.  He also had horses and operated a big arena in town that hosted horse shows, rodeos, and horse sales.

Tommy was also a political activist. In the 70s he had been active in the tractorcades - farmers drove their tractors to state capitols and Washington, DC to protest farm policies. Tommy even met with President Jimmy Carter to discuss farm policy.  By the 80s, Tommy had become involved with anti-government groups such as Christian Identity.

Oscar Lorick had borrowed money from the bank and couldn't pay it back. The bank foreclosed on his property and was set to seize it - an act usually carried out by a sheriff's deputy posting a notice on the property.

But Tommy Kersey and his farm friends decided to draw a line in the dirt, so to speak.  They said that the foreclosures of family farms would stop - and their first place of resistance would be on Oscar Lorick's farm. They called in reinforcements.

On the day the property seizure was to take place, I was sent by my TV station (WMGT-TV) to cover the action.  I arrived early in the morning to see campfires burning in various spots around the Lorick's nice brick home.  I could also see, sitting in the drive next to the house, a huge TV satellite truck from WXIA-TV in Atlanta.  Those things were rare, then.

As I drove up, I saw several of the men around the nearest campfire grab their firearms. Tommy Kersey was one of them, and when I shouted out his name, the men put down their guns. I hopped out, grabbed my camera, and began doing interviews. It was an interesting lot.

First there was Oscar himself.  Even for a native Southerner like myself, Oscar spoke painfully slow. He said he didn't want to cause any trouble, he just wanted to keep his land and have a chance to pay off the montages. He seemed to be a nice man, and his wife seemed equally nice. I think they genuinely didn't quite know what to make of the other folks inhabiting their yard.

I would estimate there were about 50 "volunteers" spotted at various places around the property.  Most were armed with what we would now call assault rifles. A couple carried shotguns.  I got my big surprise when I interviewed several of them.  They were not local rednecks, but were guys from Iowa and Idaho and other places.  They said they had come to help a brother farmer.  When asked by one of the Atlanta reporters why they, being white, were helping a black man, they said they didn't care about skin color - they were fighting for farmer's rights.

There was also a loud-mouthed preacher turned politician who tried his best to take over the proceedings. No one seemed to pay much attention to him. I remember his last name was Humphreys, so he must be this guy, who claims this is what happened:

Larry Humphreys, who was running for Congress on a "Republican/Populist" platform at the time and who had called on banks to declare a "land Sabbath," gathered 50 of his Posse Comitatus/Christian Identity followers. Wearing camouflage clothing and outfitted with semiautomatic weapons, the small militia staked themselves out at the farm, which they covered with anti-Semitic posters denouncing the "Zionist Occupation Government."

 

When the sheriff arrived with a badly outnumbered contingent of deputies, Humphreys' group began firing their semiautomatics into Lorick's haystack to dramatize their firepower. One of the shooters declared, "We won't fire until fired upon, but if we are fired upon, heaven help the men on the other side." The sheriff and his deputies left the farm without serving papers, and that evening the lawman held a press conference to announce that a deal had been made between Lorick and the bank to allow the embattled farmer more time to raise money to pay off the loan.

It may be that Humphreys used the plight of Lorick to pursue his own antiSemitic agenda and garner positive media attention.

I'll assure you, nothing of the sort happened. If a shot had been fired, there would have been an entirely different outcome

I never saw any anti-Semitic posters. In fact, I saw plenty of posters, as well a sign painted on one of Lorick's out buildings, that quoted from The Old Testament -  Leviticus 25 - Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee.  The farm protesters wanted the government to declare a Jubilee Year, and to declare a pardon on the debts of farmers. In other words, they wanted debt forgiveness.

Here's what happened early in the afternoon. I saw it with my own eyes.  Sheriff Harold Lancaster drove up to the Lorick property in an unmarked car. He arrived alone. When he got out of the car, we could see he was wearing a business suit, and had no evidence of a firearm.  The pack of reporters from around the state surged forward as Oscar Lorick and his wife walked out to meet the sheriff. All three sat down in chairs on the front lawn.  The pack of photographers surrounded them. Sheriff Lancaster patiently explained foreclosure to the Loricks.  Oscar repeated that he wanted a chance to pay off the debt.  The sheriff said the bank had agreed to give him some more time and told Oscar to come by his office sometime in the next few days to sign some paper work.

I have to commend Sheriff Lancaster. He could have ordered an assault by his deputies backed by all of the law enforcement the State of Georgia could muster. It could have been a massacre.  Instead, the situation eventually worked out.  Over the next couple of years, Oscar found people who helped him pay off the debt, and he continued to farm.

I fear we have a different concept in law enforcement now. The police forces have become more militarized - instead of using persuasion and patience, they seem to have adopted the military model of overwhelming force.  I fear that the folks in Connecticut will try to take a stand, as the Loricks did, but will face a far worse outcome. The bank in Georgia only wanted its money - the City of New London wants the land.