You have to love an old-fashioned
independent paper that actually prints the news and views of its community. How
quaint, and if you compare the likes of Tom Paine and Ben Franklin to the sorry
hairball of product that passes for print journalism today, how necessary.
The following is an exchange I
had with Ravalli County “patriot” Commissioner Suzie Foss on the editorial page
of the Bitterroot Star http://www.bitterrootstar.com/ over the course of
about three weeks. It started with the commissioners’ anti-government
grandstanding (you know, like, don’t tread on me, man) over a water agreement
between the Forest Service and the State of Montana. I responded to that crazy meeting
http://billlacroix.blogspot.com/2013/02/water-for-guns-and-houses-inestimable.html, then Commissioner
Suzie responded to my response, and it went downhill from there, which, as in
skiing, was my intent. One loves to hear the wind whistling through one’s ears.
We’re hard-wired for adventure, and that’s what I love about print media when
done correctly. It actually encourages democratic discussion, unlike Lee
Enterprises’ Missoulian, whose staff limits your words to about 300 and
actually edits your stuff(!!), if they print it at all. Other than this blog,
I’ll be using the Star exclusively from now on, because that’s where the
authentic printed history of these weird times will reside if anyone in the
future ever wants to know.
Most of what we really know about
the good, bad and ugly of our nation’s past comes from what was passed down to
us from the early printers, pamphleteers and journalists who understood and
freely experimented with the power of the printed word, which in my opinion is
still the most powerful human invention to date. Yes, the mechanics have
changed some, and we’re very smug about our new inventions as we upright
monkeys always are when we surprise ourselves with our cleverness. But I recently
finished reading William T. Sherman’s memoirs written in the 1880s and was
struck, as I always am when I read old books, by how dependent—and in Sherman’s
view how captive—the critical debates of those times were carried on in the
newspapers. After the first lousy day at Shiloh, for instance, Sherman was
found reading a newspaper by candlelight in the pouring rain. Try attaching
that level of importance to the discussions going in in, say, U.S.A. Today. The
Federalist Papers were basically pamphlets with substance, and they have
survived with most of their original power to this day. Will Ann Coulter’s
self-important waste of forest products wear as evenly? I don’t think so.
For all the warlike nattering we
hear today from “patriots” about our sacred “founders”, there’s precious little
real-time honor being paid to the pamphleteers who actually pioneered modern
journalism and, in the process, made the American and French revolutions not
only possible but inevitable. The lies of the rich were what the independent,
portable presses of the time were meant to counter. We the People owe our
modern voice to hemp, lead type and burnt linseed oil (ink, I think).
Not that I believe the Bitterroot Star is going to inspire us into messy revolutions, but as Sherman might have put it, I submit the following letters and articles in order
to demonstrate the passions that existed at the time and in the hope that they speak
for themselves:
My first editorial titled “Crazy corruption”
was printed Feb. 26, 2013 and was also posted previously on this blog here: http://billlacroix.blogspot.com/2013/02/water-for-guns-and-houses-inestimable.html
Commissioner Foss replied on March 5, 2013, which I
edited here for the sake of brevity, can read in its entirety here: http://www.bitterrootstar.com/2013/03/05/response-to-lacroix-2/
“I
usually ignore the rantings of Bill LaCroix as they are so over the top that I
know the reasonable citizens of Ravalli County will see this poor man’s
extremism for what it is. However, sometimes the man just goes too far and that
is the case in his last ravings.
Titled “Crazy Corruption”, LaCroix accuses me
of engineering an “ambush of hotheads and low-information malcontents,”
referring to a meeting called by the commission for a representative of the
DNRC to explain…(etc.)…Bitterroot National Forest supervisor Julie King stated
that “yes, the reason the Forest Service is filing on the water is to control
future…(etc.)…I swore to “defend the Constitutions” when I took office and my
word is my bond…(OMG etc.)…the challenge we as a commission have is to weigh
threats to our county…(Holy Cow! etc.)… the legislature violated our Constitutional
rights…(etc. OMG OMG!)… we embrace our family and friends who are employed by
the USFS, however, that does not mean we do not have the right or the
obligation to …(etc.)…Mr. LaCroix failed to mention that he was in the very
small minority of citizens during our public meeting. The majority there asked
us to file an objection on their behalf.
I believe we all want what is best,
that is the ultimate goal.”
Suzy Foss
Ravalli County Commissioner
My response to Ms. Foss, printed March 15th,
2013:
Editor,
I’d like to thank Commissioner Foss for coming up with a label I
can finally live with. After decades of living and working in Montana, Idaho
and Washington, working in the fishing industry, the logging industry, having
my own nursery and restoration business, searching for my true identity, I’ve
tripped over a lot of handles people have tried to hang on folks like me that
just didn’t seem like quite the perfect fit. “Veteran”, “hippy”, “redneck”,
“environmentalist”. All of them lacked that certain zing I craved in describing
my peculiar path upon this planet.
Thanks to Ms. Foss, though, I can now lay that burden down by
proudly accepting her labeling me as a “poor man’s extremist”. I never would
have thought of it myself, and it’s got that zing, it fits my many moods and it
also actually means something, unlike so many things people have called me—and
the many, many folks like me in this neck of the woods—in the past.
Speaking of which, Suzie’s facts aren’t straight. The folks who
showed up to that meeting objecting to this commission’s haranguing of state
and federal employees just doing their jobs was far more than “a very small
minority” and the Forest Service supervisor didn’t say what Suzie said she
said. It’s unfortunate, to say the least, that a county commissioner would dismiss
whole groups of county taxpayers in a published letter like that.
But never mind. I really just wanted to thank her for the “poor
man’s extremist” label and I’d like to recommend that anyone else feeling
slightly out of place in these tea-soaked times try it on. It feels just right,
at least for me.
The Star’s article on Montana Dept. of Natural Resource’s (DNRC) refusing to entertain the commissioners’ frivolous objection, printed March 27th,
2013:
My response to that article, printed April 2nd, 2013
Editor,
I hadn't realized until
I read the Bitterroot Star last week that our commission was protesting the $25
filing fee to object to the Forest Service’s water right
applications as a violation of
citizens' rights to participate in government. To quote the Star: “The county claims that to charge a
$25 fee to file an objection violates the Montana constitution’s guarantee of
the right to know and participate in the actions of governmental agencies.”
Attention all
Bitterroot voters: In early 2011, this commission set up and attended as
a quorum a for-profit meeting with American Stewards of Liberty (ASL),
the Far-Right, for profit outfit that promotes the Wise-Use/county-supremacy
scheme they dub “coordination”. This for-profit meeting with ASL was on the
commissioners’ agenda, and when members of the public showed up and demanded
the right to attend, they were told that they could not do so unless they paid
the $45 fee the organizer--Suzie Foss--demanded. The public was therefore explicitly
denied access to a public meeting by the organizer—Suzie Foss—who unilaterally declared
this public meeting a revenue-generating activity. Soon after, the same commission
voted in a sweet, taxpayer-funded deal for ASL to the tune of thousands of
dollars.
Bitterroot Human
Rights Alliance has had a FOIA request on the table since May of 2011
requesting financial records of that event, and to date have not had the
satisfaction of an adequate response. The only reason it has been sitting so
long is the lack of formal litigation, which as we all know makes justice
inaccessible in many important cases such as this.
Given the
conflict-of-interest issues arising from current challenges facing this county,
such as Legacy Ranch Subdivision, I believe the issue of charging citizens to
attend public governmental meetings is still relevant and has standing on
several levels, and we should demand the public's right to know about these conflicts
of interest issues consistently emanating from this commission.
Happily, now that
this commission has come out in full support against fees for public process, and
since the same players, such as Foss and Planning Office Manager Terry Nelson
were intimately involved in the January 2011 ASL meeting as well as the Legacy
proposal and the protesting of federal water rights, I'm sure the time is ripe for
them to fully cooperate in handing over all relevant documents, including bank
statements etc. from Ms. Foss' private account to assure the public that she
did not profit from a PUBLIC meeting with ASL that the public was denied access
to.
This commission
consistently insists on picking frivolous, money-consuming fights with straw
men of their own creation in order to display a frivolous ideology that,
unsurprisingly, also has a more-earthy conflict-of-interest component. Given
the seriousness of such official actions as taking on the Forest Service and
approving a new, for-profit town euphemistically dubbed Legacy Ranch
Subdivision, we the public have every right to be as informed as possible about
these commissioners’ true relationships with Legacy Ranch’s Donald Morton and
Territorial Landworks as well as the out-of-state, for-profit organization,
American Stewards of Liberty.
Bill
LaCroix
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