Politics

A Definition

Politics is a poorly-understood human condition whereby, if you put two people in the same room you may or may not have it, but if you put the same two people in a bathroom, you will.

“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of many things.”

“I’ll believe a corporation is a person when Texas kills one”

A Note to Montana Democrats

All of us in rural Montana who have organized meetings and strategy sessions around issues to the left of Attila the Wall Street Speculator know the feeling when we look around the room and calculate the average age. It’s usually around 60, isn’t it?

That’s why a now-common political slur is annoying me so greatly. I won’t footnote the year’s worth of “liberal” talking heads who’ve repeated it in one form or another, so I’ll just distill down to its simple essence:

People are pissed because the Wall Street crooks got away with their heist, so they’re supporting “extreme” protest candidates like Trump and Sanders.

It’s not that “old” progressives like myself are thin-skinned about such gratuitous dismissals coming from unexpected places. Remember Obama’s mantra “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” when he reneged on his campaign promise for a “public option”, when majorities of Montanans were showing up at Baucus’ dog-and-pony shows demanding healthcare reform not health insurance reform and the Democratic elites responded by substituting one Rube-Goldberg-get-rich-quick scheme for the already-rich with another? Cutting off the legs of your base after you get their votes with the rallying cry of “what choice do they have!” has been common scheme for Democrats in power for a long, long time. So “old” progressives like myself aren’t surprised with backhanded dismissals from “the center” when we are no longer seen as useful. We’re used to it. But guess what? All those young people whom Bernie has finally engaged, whom the Democratic Party needs so desperately to remain a viable movement as well as a party, aren’t.

This election cycle is, if it’s nothing else, different, and Montana Democrats are in a uniquely favored position to appreciate that difference. The divide between those who believe that the Edge of the World where dinosaurs live with humans is just south of Darby and those who don’t believe that is as self-evident as whether your septic juices flow into the Pacific or the Atlantic. So let’s take a minute and examine this canard that those who believe a better world than incremental slides toward dystopia is possible and those who believe in the Edge of the World are peas from the same “protest-vote” pod. Ready? Go…

            …There, that didn’t take long, did it? Now let’s consider what will happen to the Democratic Party if their leaders and activists stick to and act on such mind-numbingly-incorrect analyses.

            Rudely dismissing a whole generation of young people so desperately needed for so very long in every fight Democrats claim as theirs is explicitly self-destructive. For one thing, once they’re dismissed as starry-eyed, unrealistic Trumpians of the Left, you can bet they’ll disappear, and you can talk until you’re blue in the face about how they should show up and vote for Hillary anyway, but you know a lot of them won’t, and for good reason. Worse, they won’t show up to vote for the other progressive politicians on the ticket needed to really change the chemistry in Congress and the state legislatures, the ones who’ll do the heavy lifting of taking on Wall Street, the war machine, college debt, grade-school funding, the heathcare crisis. It won’t matter then, whether their Chosen One gets coronated or not. We’ll be in same politically-dysfunctional mess we’re in now for another four, or eight more years.

Worst of all in the opinion of a progressive who’s been active in one of our small, rural towns for many years: the saddest effect of condescendingly dismissing smart young people whose political dander is finally up is that when we take stock of our tiny local progressive “activist” lists in a few years, the average age will be 70.

Stand and Fight

 “Think of this as an endless war,” Rick Berman told a roomful of gas and oil executives a few months before yesterday’s scorched-earth elections. “You can either win ugly or lose pretty.”

We suspect the Sons of A.L.E.C.[i] say such things to each other when they don’t think anyone’s listening, but we shouldn’t be surprised when a bit of the green zombie fluid that passes for blood in these creatures oozes through for us to gawk at. Snake oil is as American as P.T. Barnum and J.P. Morgan. In fact it's a hybrid of the two and has been around since at least as long as those rich, dead, white guys walked the Earth. 

Rick Berman, a Big Oil lobbyist, made the above comments while giving a pep talk about the infinite, patronizing wisdom of Big Oil’s handful of billionaires using dark money to throw elections. Oddly, his message was also meant to comfort the consciences of some of these extremely rich energy elites, some of whom apparently were feeling a bit queezy about participating in such a massively cynical and destructive con scheme as buying politicians for the sake of denying Global Warming. Some of these guys have kids, after all. To these executives whose souls haven’t yet been ossified in some tar pit, Berman’s message was: Not to worry!! Now that the Supreme Court has been firmly deep-pocketed by your boss, the Beast, you executives can relax. You, like the courtiers of King Louis the 16^th, no longer need any stinking public opinions. Winning, as in plutocracy, is the only game in town now. Ask any rich football player. With enough money, you can beat your wife and beat the rap. Ask Louis the 16^th. It’s just business.

Obviously their hubris will kill them, and we should all hope for their speedy and painful end. But if we don’t stand up to the gangrenous challenge tossed our way in the form of yesterday’s stolen elections and fight, it’ll kill us, too. We shouldn’t be surprised.

The only reason we know about Berman’s pep talk to these captains of Big Oil’s Scum Fleet is because one of those captains allowed his guilt to get the better of him and he leaked the contents of Berman’s message to the “liberal” press (full transcript) who dutifully buried it. Heard of Rick Berman? Probably not. Case closed, but the scum still leaves a sheen on the water that no one, not even the professional deniers, try to deny anymore.

If any American to the left of Attila had any doubts before yesterday’s elections that our country is being held hostage by filthy-rich sociopaths and downright psychopathic corpo-terrorists enabled by their bigoted, idiotic teabag “electorate”, these “election” results should disabuse them of their fantasies.

We have no democracy left in our elections. They have been sold to the highest bidder. Until we can effectively kill the flesh-eating zombie the corporate Supreme Court unleashed upon us—the Supreme Court that opines that zombie drool (and money) is speech—this will not only remain the case, but we will rot in our body politic until we match the foul appearance of its murderer.

This does not mean we are without democracy. It means that, notwithstanding notable and heartening exceptions, by and large Democracy does not reside in elections anymore. It lies in direct action. For the next couple of years, putting your bodies on the line for the sake of what you believe in and for what you hope your children will believe in is your vote.

Direct action does not mean violence. It does not mean the gunnut-style threat of violence. It means nonviolent civil disobedience. Placing your bodies, en masse, in front of the coal trains, the fracking rigs, the limosines carrying the zombie fodder to their next corporate feel-good power point seminar. It means placing yourself in the position of surviving Hurricane Katrina--that perfect metaphor of what these corpo-terrorists would like to do to all of us if given half the chance--and asking yourself “where can I be most useful?” It means saving lives. It means being creative. It means being brave, being very brave.

Direct action does not mean not voting. If boycotting elections to prove a point were going to work it surely would have by now. God knows we’ve given that approach plenty of chances. Progressive politics are our collective statement that we believe in Democracy and in civil society and that, as soon as we purge their filthy money out of our elections, we will have both. Until that happens, don’t look at rigged elections as the path to power. Look at them as statements. They know that we’re still out here and onto them, they know we're the majority and they fear us. Why else do they have zombie pep rallies with the likes of high-paid shills like Berman if they didn’t? Why else would one of those corporate elites have leaked his speech? They won't admit it but their actions, as always, belie their hearts, such as hearts are in their kind. 

Look at it this way. Capitalism, as these rich wingos define it, is dead. It's continued destructive existence can therefore only mean that the creatures who still adhere to it are flesh-eating zombies. That this is extremely problematic only clinches my point, because it's a fact that there’s nothing more fun than putting fear in the heart of a flesh-eating zombie.  Ask any Hollywood movie mogul. Zombies are, at best, conflicted beings and they wriggle so satisfyingly when they're distressed. Remember: we are the majority. They know that and are confused. They're wriggling. It's a fact. I rest my case.

There are those in America who don’t give a second’s worth of consideration as to whether snake oil is actually good for you or not. They gulp it right down because that’s what they’ve always done and because that’s what their momma and their daddy have always done and if it’s good enough for them and…etc. They are the minority. On the other hand, if you are the kind of American who has been around since long before the robber barons and their public relations scumbags tried to sell you the lie that you are not the majority, the kind of American who actually does place high value on freedom and democracy and who will stand and fight for those values, you should first of all be angry at this, another stolen election. You should be very angry. And then you should get ready to vote with your body, your direct action. Now is the time if there ever was one. There are plenty of opportunities. Look for them. Be creative. 

We haven't lost. Stand and fight.

---

[i] http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

Paying dearly for lapse in vigilance

Technology Breaktrhough!
Virtual Brain Imaging Reveals Stunning Photos of What  Ravalli County Commissioners Are Thinking When They Say "Land-Use Planning"

Note: I never posted this on-line, but it seems appropriate a week before the elections so here it is. I sent this to the Bitterroot Star before the last primaries, when Bitterrooters where lamenting that "if we could only get rid of Suzy...". My point then, as it is now, is that such  destructive, extremist politicians like Ravalli County Commissioner Suzie Foss are not the disease by a long shot. They are only the sad symptoms of public discussion atrophied into gangrenous dysfunction to the point where a confounding person like her could ever be in the position she was in. Wealthy elites generally don't like democracy, and gangrenous dysfunction is O.K. with them for now. Getting rid of Suzie was like taking aspirin for hemorrhagic fever. The Northern Rockies, both its environment and its people, have suffered mightily for decades from far-right extremism packaged as "conservative values" by the deep-pocket developers who cash in on dysfunction, and they haven't gone anywhere. If you liked Suzie Foss, wait until you see Theresa Manzella.

Remember: you heard it here first.

Posted on March 6, 2014 in the Bitterroot Star: Letters

Remember Celebrating Conservatism? That good old Johnny Reb revivalist show that camped at our publicly-funded fairground for a couple years after the 2008 elections? You must remember them, especially if you want to understand how this county got itself into this current pickle we are all paying dearly for.

A reminder then. Celebrating Conservatism was the outfit that marched a hit parade of extreme-right rock stars through our county to “educate” us about various conspiracy theories that, according to them, warranted advocating for civil war or at least for threats of violence against those they disagreed with:

• Red Beckman, the Montana Freeman associate who threatened to shoot federal employees and who taught us that the Holocaust was God’s punishment on the Jews for killing Jesus.

• Richard Mack, the Sovereign-Citizen darling who taught us that the county sheriff was the supreme law of the land and has the right to conscript you, the citizen, at will to construct fortifications around Hamilton against the time coming when black helicopters land here with Belgian troops to enforce Agenda 21.

• Shaffer Cox, who was arrested immediately after being a featured speaker at Celebrating Conservatism’s “Liberty Convention” for plotting to kill Alaska state troopers and a judge and who is now serving decades of hard time for it (talk about not doing a background check!).

• Gary Marbut of Montana Shooting Sports Association, who shared the stage with Shaeffer Cox in Hamilton on at least one occasion.

• And many more.

Remember the secessionist manifestos Celebrating Conservatism circulated and that hundreds of Ravalli County citizens – including several who now sit on our governing boards – signed?

• The “Ravalli County Questionnaire”, the cut-and-paste, common-scheme paper terrorism threat to county employees that they would be tried by a “citizen grand jury” if they didn’t buckle to the signers’ paranoid demands?

• The “Second Amendment Declaration”, which threatened civil war if one more law they didn’t approve of was passed?

All three commissioners – Foss, Stoltz and Kanenwisher – as well as County Attorney, Bill Fulbright, who won their seats in the 2010 election, were either directly tied to Celebrating Conservatism, signed their secessionist threats or pandered to the groundswell of paranoia this group represented for their votes and support. Also directly tied or associated with this extremist group are:

• Terry Nelson, chair of the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee, who was appointed by ALL FIVE Republican commissioners to fill a well-paid government position (with health care benefits!) he was not qualified for.

• Jeff Burrows, who was appointed by ALL the remaining Republican commissioners after Kanenwisher pulled a Palin and split the country.

• Valerie Stamey.

• Her husband, Rick Stamey, who now sits on our Planning Board.

• Almost every other surviving member of the Planning Board.

• Members of every other county board that has had vacancies filled since the 2010 extremist coup.

• The “Ravalli County Tea Party Patriots”.

How did we allow ourselves to get into this mess? It didn’t happen overnight, and it isn’t the fault of one single treasurer or three single commissioners. They, as well as the local Republican hierarchy in general – Chilcott, Iman, Hawk, Thomas, etc. – are doing exactly what they told you, the voter, they intended to do. They are remaking our governing bodies into their own developer-beholden images.

Stamey, Foss, Ballance, Boulanger and, now, Theresa Manzella, are really only the point people for this reactionary movement that has been going on within the developer circles of the local and state Republican Party since the militia flare-up here in the Bitterroot in the mid-90s. Remember that one? When Bitterroot Rep. Matt Brainard introduced a “state militia” bill in the legislature days before Oklahoma City was bombed? When the Ravalli County Courthouse received a bomb threat on THE SAME DAY as Oklahoma City? When Conrad Burns brought Militia of Montana founder John Trochmann to a congressional hearing immediately after the Oklahoma bombing to “school” senators on county supremacy and state’s rights? Twenty years later, Trochmann’s Sanders County protégé, Jennifer Fielder, is the vice-president of the Montana Republican Party. The proof’s in the pudding. So-called “moderates” within the state and local Republican Party organizations have not only never distanced themselves or their party from those who suffer from the extremist paranoid views of Celebrating Conservatism and Militia of Montana, they have PANDERED to them for their votes so they can continue the percolation of wealth and limited resources to their developer-benefactors.

It is critical that enough Ravalli County voters, whatever their party affiliation or non-affiliation is, understand the Montana Republican Party’s history over the last two decades and the dire consequences – now playing out at your local county administration buildings – of the unlearned lesson of allowing one’s bigotry to get the best of one’s common sense. Ravalli County voters: pay heed to what these people who seem so laughable to you now expound upon in public before you cast your votes again in any election of any significance, because these point people not only mean what they say, they have the developer-bucks and the “moderate” Republicans to back them up.

A note to doubters: all of the above is fact-checkable for the very simple reason that neither you nor I could possibly make it up.

No kiddin’.

Bill LaCroix, Victor, Montana

Thank You, Howard Zahniser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL5lfsZi6Oo

Here's another music video attempt of mine. 

The pictures and documents displayed are from my friend Stewart Brandborg's personal files and records. Brandy took over The Wilderness Society after Howard Zahniser's untimely death in 1964, a few months before Zahnie's eight-year Foggy Bottom slog to get a Wilderness Bill through our ever-unholy Congress was finally realized. It was Brandy's task to implement it against bureaucratic reluctance and intransigence within all the agencies that managed our public lands. The long story is a book that hasn't been written yet (I'm working on it!). For now, though, the short story is this: Brandy's dad (Guy M. Brandborg, pictured on his horse with Zahniser and AnnaVee Brandborg in the video) was a progressive forester from the Gifford Pinchot mold and his grandfather (on his father's side), was what you'd call a socialist back in the early part of the twentieth century when farmer's unions were strong. Socialism, as American as rhubarb pie, just as John-Birch-Society-style "libertarianism" is. Guess which one you can thank for the wilderness law, and for Democracy, too? 

The Brandborgs were well-read, well-steeped in social altruism, and natural believers in Democracy (with a capital "D", not the FoxNews "fair and balanced" kind). With such a rich heritage, Brandy naturally gravitated toward Howard Zahniser and his epic campaign to get Congress to pass the singular law that forced Congress admit that humility was a good quality for them to confess they had a little of. After the Law was passed, Brandy pretty much wrote the book on grassroots organizing in the latter part of the twentieth century in order to get it implemented. Other laws, and other grassroots campaigns, followed the trails cut out by the original Wilderness Society organizers. Political hyperventilation from the extractors and their mouthpieces hasn't let up since, of course. It's been mean and incessant for decades, to the point where we can only bear witness to the inscrutable, nasty yet ultimately ephemeral Tea Party and MAGA phenomena here in the Rockies. 

The Land always prevails. Be on the right side of it. Here's to the start of it all for those of us alive today. Here's to Howard Zahniser, Stewart Brandborg and here's to good ol' Democracy.

Say Hell No! To Walmart

Crosman MK 177 Tactical Air Rifle

Here's a little food for thought regarding the recent shooting at a Walmart store of a young man by police officers in Beavercreek, Ohio. Beavercreek is an affluent, mostly-white suburb of Dayton. The young man, who was not white, had picked up a BB gun in the toy department. It was apparently a Crosman MK 177 Tactical Air Rifle, pictured above (all the pictures on this post come directly from Walmart's website http://www.walmart.com/tp/bb-guns).  

What in the world, you might ask, is a "tactical" air rifle, and what is Walmart doing encouraging children to acquire "tactical" weapons? Before I opine on that, below are a few other choices the young man, who was not white and who was shot dead by police (shades of skin unknown by myself), may have found in the toy department at this typical Walmart in a typical, mostly-white affluent suburb of a large city.

 What ever happened, you might ask, to BB guns that don't look like real-life assault weapons. Not to worry. Here's one below, part of a kit complete with human targets...for practice in case you want to grow up to be a police officer in a mostly-white, affluent suburb.

Given that these pictures are all proudly displayed on Walmart's own website and are worth a thousand tortured words, here's the next question you might ask: Does Walmart have any second thoughts about being the mass purveyors of such merchandise in a country already overcharged with an idiotic Teabag ideology's fixation on assault weapons and the resultant plethora of mass shootings with assault weapons? Well no, says a Walmart spokesman. Ohio, you see, is an open-carry state.

So you do see, don't you, that it's not only perfectly legal for Walmart to display and sell "tactical" BB guns, it's just as perfectly legal for a young man to be carrying a real gun in a Walmart store... if you follow the logic, which I hope you can't.

Because it appears by every measure that the young man's real crime was to be of the wrong color while carrying a gun--real or BB--in a Walmart store. So, as promised, I'll leave you with some food for all your thinking: Would it have been a shootable crime for the young man to have been carrying the BB gun pictured below, also sold by Walmart, while black?

Are we there yet? Can we start evolving now, or at least start talking like grown-ups?