It seems ironic, in light of the media firestorm over his allegedly racist remarks, but Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy started planning early this week for today’s Bundy Ranch party, to which he specifically invited minorities, a close family friend who has become the Bundys’ live-in secretary tells WND.

Talking to Shawna Cox, who spends virtually all of her time at the Bundy Ranch and fields calls for the besieged family, WND jumped to the big question: “Is Cliven Bundy a racist, and what exactly does he think about slavery?”

“Of course not!” she replied strongly, regarding racism, adding, “We believe slavery is horrible!

“Friday night we are actually planning a party and specifically inviting blacks and Latinos,” said Cox. “We started planning this party way before these comments were made.”

Cox told WND that after last Friday’s party, Bundy began asking why it was that not many blacks or Latinos were present. So the controversial rancher met with some of the minorities in the community on Monday or Tuesday, she said, to reach out to them and invite them to today’s party.

“I know the man. He’s a God-fearing man,” she said. “This is a really good man who loves and cares about all people,” she added with conviction.

More irony: Cox insists Bundy was “trying to reach out to [blacks]” in his comments. However, she said, “we’re cowboys we don’t always say things exactly right.”

Referring to the ongoing dispute with the federal government, which threatened to ignite before resolving peacefully when hundreds of armed government agents left the property last weekend, she commented: “This is about taking us back to freedom and the Constitution. This has nothing to do with anything racial.”

Asked why she spends so much time at the ranch, Cox replied, “I help because I know this is a wonderful cause.

“The people here – they don’t want to leave because there is such love and peace that’s here.”

For the past three-and-a-half weeks, Cox said, she has spent 22 to 24 hours a day at the Bundy Ranch, acting as the family secretary.

“I do have to go home every couple days and feed my chickens.”

***UPDATE***

The following press release, dated Friday, April 25, 2014, was just posted on the Bundy Ranch website:

We are trading one form of slavery for another.

What I am saying is that all we Americans are trading one form of slavery for another. All of us are in some measure slaves of the federal government. Through their oppressive tactics of telling the ranchers how many cows they can have on their land, and making that number too low to support a ranch, the BLM has driven every rancher in Clark County off the land, except me. The IRS keeps the people of America in fear, and makes us all work about a third or a half of the year before we have earned enough to pay their taxes. This is nothing but slavery from January through May. The NSA spies on us and collects our private phone calls and emails. And the government dole which many people in America are on, and have been for much of their lives, is dehumanizing and degrading. It takes away incentive to work and self respect. Eventually a person on the dole becomes a ward of the government, because his only source of income is a dole from the government. Once the government has you in that position, you are its slave.

I am trying to keep Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream alive. He was praying for the day when he and his people would be free, and he could say I’m free, free at last, thank God I’m free at last! But all of us here America, no matter our race, are having our freedom eroded and destroyed by the federal government because of its heavy handed tactics. The BLM, the IRS, the NSA–all of the federal agencies are destroying our freedom. I am standing up against their bad and unconstitutional laws, just like Rosa Parks did when she refused to sit in the back of the bus. She started a revolution in America, the civil rights movement, which freed the black people from much of the oppression they were suffering. I’m saying Martin Luther King’s dream was not that Rosa could take her rightful seat in the front of the bus, but his dream was that she could take any seat on the bus and I would be honored to sit beside her. I am doing the same thing Rosa Parks did–I am standing up against bad laws which dehumanize us and destroy our freedom. Just like the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord, we are saying no to an oppressive government which considers us to be slaves rather than free men.

I invite all people in America to join in our peaceful revolution to regain our freedom. That is how America was started, and we need to keep that tradition alive.

Cliven D. Bundy

Sarah Kupelian is producer of Talk Radio Network’s nationally syndicated weekly show “Everything That Matters,” hosted by Dianne Linderman and broadcast live Sundays from 12 p.m.-2 p.m. Pacific. She is also a contributor to WND and is an owner-partner of the Great American Entertainment Company LLC.

Related columns:

New York Times sting entraps Bundy by Joseph Farah

Why the land belongs to Bundy by Ilana Mercer

Related stories:

Black leader says Bundy remarks not racist

Bundy’s son: N.Y. Times quote ‘out of context’

Harry’s war – David Kupelian on what’s really behind the targeting of Cliven Bundy

http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/bundy-secretary-we-believe-slavery-is-horrible/print/