Blame it on high school

Being Roundup Ready 


Blame it on high school

I recently acquired my own graduating Class of 1965 Great Falls High School yearbook,  "The Roundup" - reflecting our sports team name, The Bison.  We were definitely "Roundup Ready."  Except for me.  I only appeared in it as part of a blurry group picture of National Merit Scholarship Finalists - although I never even applied for any "scholarships," and thought it was insulting and degrading to do so - like hitch-hiking, which I also considered "begging."  I was a fair student, if I liked the teacher, but I was there to learn, not get "good grades" or "scholarships", which one might naturally assume has something to do with intelligent study rather than money, but that is not the case.  In short, I was a "rebel."  

My grandmother did pay for a senior picture from the Nebel Studio (having both studied German, we knew what "Nebel" meant), but I never submitted one to the Roundup, nor did I reserve a copy  for myself.  I'd had bad experiences with my sophomore and junior Roundups, with no more than 5-10 signatures of (mostly elementary school) friends and associates.  You see, I was not socially "well-adjusted."  I did not have a successful adolescence. In fact, I was not "well-adjusted" at all. 

I found the Roundup I recently purchased at an antique store, and since it was water-stained, as though it had been in a flood or something,  I only paid $8 (2012 dollars) for something which had cost something like $45 (1965 gold standard dollars, when the price of silver was $1.29/oz - now $30+).  In those days, you could buy a real $20 gold piece for $48-50, and silver coins were still in circulation at face value.  So, the depreciation on this  year book (and undamaged ones usually sell for about $20 today) was something like 99%.  The 45 silver dollars (or other silver coins) or $20 gold piece used to buy it would now be worth over $900.  Imagine a kid asking his parents for $900 to buy a high school yearbook!  

Only medical procedures (and some military contracts) have inflated that much.  I just read that the going price for infant circumcision is now $400-600 (in addition to other pediatric care), and I imagine it was $5-10 back in 1965.  My whole birth cost (doctor and hospital) was just over $100 in 1947.  The same amount of care, including 2-3 days in hospital (which was then routine) would now easily cost $15,000 most places.  

I've probably spent 10 hours or more perusing this yearbook which I had previously only glanced at in libraries or friends' houses.  I found that I knew hundreds of people, with a half-dozen or more being present "Facebook" friends and comrades-in-peace and justice.  If FB wasn't seen as a "Jewish" project, there would no doubt be many more.  

Last night, I  saw a very good episode of "Freaks and Geeks" from 2000 - one of the best accounts of teen-age life (this  looking back to the 1980's) ever made.  I've also recently seen several John Hughes teen films from the 1980's - Hughes having recently passed on.  "Pretty in Pink" is absolutely right-on as an account of class conflicts in high school, and it was this that made me an enemy of large "consolidated" high schools.  The Molly Ringwald character is very close to a female version of me, and I wonder if that wasn't intentional, although I don't know any of the film-makers or actors.  

I remember one girl, Tracy ----, daughter of one of the largest landowners in Cascade County, who I knew as a sophomore (and who went on the Norway Summer School trip in the summer of 1963, which subsequently defined our high school class "elite" - everyone who went mentioned it in their senior picture comments), and then disappeared from GFHS.  I also remember the sophomore boys in the locker room scheming about seducing her - the most prominent one being a Mormon of Greek descent.  I imagine that her father placed her in the local Catholic high school for that very reason, and I later heard that she died young as a drug addict. And this a person from the highest elites whom I wouldn't have dreamed of asking out or "fraternizing" with.  The one "date" I had in highschool (as a sophomore) was with the sister of my sister's best friend, and I never repeated that trauma. 

There was a huge Catholic-Protestant rivalry going on in those days, difficult to even visualize, today.  And there was also a class stratification in this mostly working-class and small business town which, if it exists today, is well-concealed and never talked about.  The rich people mostly departed long ago, or send their kids to private schools.  Central Catholic High School, which then had some 600 students in Great Falls, actually closed for more than 20 years, but has re-opened in this century, and now has more than 100 students, with high academic achievement.  

The strange thing about 1960's public school life for me was that I was both an aristocrat and leading role model, yet a total outcast in my own mind - hating school and nearly everyone in it.  This I now attribute to the fact that I was an "adult child of alcoholics", but I didn't learn about that syndrome or condition until I was in my 30's.  Although my family was prominent, the men were mostly alcoholics, while the women had married into the working class and remained responsible church-goers and conformists to the status quo, without any intellectual or cultural pretensions whatsoever.  They did maintain the puritanical, Protestant attitudes of blaming the victims, however, and whatever happened to me had to be my own fault, since I was obviously "gifted" and the favorite of our grandmother, who promoted me as the sole male Stephens of our generation, and thus in line to inherit a 1200 acre ranch along the lines of primogeniture and entail (which no one else had ever heard of, of course).  

I've often wondered how much our civic condition has to do with environmental factors in Great Falls.  We were home to large metal smelters and refineries for more than 70 years, which peaked during World War II and were still dominant in the 1960's.  The fact that I spent my first 6 years 30 miles downwind from Great Falls, in the foothills of the Highwood Mountains, is of little help, since we have determined that the heavy metals pollution might, if anything, be even worse there than in Black Eagle, where the Anaconda Smelter was located.  

Teenagers tend to form into gangs, which may be engaged in drug trafficking or some other predatory behavior, but are mostly concerned about controlling the sex lives of their sisters and other females in their territory.  And we know that heavy metal poisoning leads to all sorts of mindless, aggressive behavior, as well as autism, madness (the "mad hatters" used mercury compounds in their trade), etc. Surely there is more than an average amount of this in Great Falls, and those of us in my generation were especially susceptible to it. 

Unfortunately, the same veterans of war and heavy industry still control the school system and local politics, and if possible, they want to re-establish the rule of Heavy Metal and other fascist institutions - especially in the schools, libraries, and other parts of the "cultural infrastructure."  No doubt this has a lot to do with the fact that we were home to the first nuclear-armed Minuteman strategic missile base - Malmstrom - which  still exists a half-century later with the same mission.  

Russell the Revolutionary

Russell the Revolutionary

Charles Marion Russell.  Remember that guy?  His mother was a Bent, his great-uncle killed at Taos in the territorial transition following the Mexican War.  He had just been appointed Territorial Governor (the same position later held by Thomas Meagher in Montana) - "military governor" would be more accurate, or Gauleiter, if you want to to use the Nazi hierarchy as a model. 

The Bent's were as important to the development of the Southwest as, say, Pierre Chouteau or Manual Lisa were to the Upper Missouri.  And Fort Benton and the American Fur Company were basically just the "Northern Branch" of the same outfit based in St. Louis.   These were the first big Metis corporations, in which the company heads and employees were encouraged (and rewarded) for marrying into the indigenous tribes.  These were legitimate marriages between practicing Catholics.  And the names and companies and tribes still exist, and interact with each other along the same lines. 

Thomas Hart Benton was the first and greatest "Senator From Missouri," and a bloody imperialist to the core - John Charles Fremont was his son-in-law, and together, they are credited with securing the conquest of California, among other things.  It was for him that the American Fur Company (largely owned by John J. Astor, the man who endowed Central Park in NYC) named Fort Benton.  Earlier, there had been a succession of trading forts on the Upper Missouri, including one just downstream from Fort Benton, near Loma. 

So, the local "boosters" of economic development, whom Russell vociferously opposed, were none other than Russell, himself, his family and associates.  He was at the center of what future sustainability historians might see as a "revolutionary cell" - bent (no pun intended) on overthrowing the natural, sustainable, long-term regime - that of the Plains Indians.

But of course they didn't see it that way, and neither did the Plains Indians.  For Indians, just like us, there are "good guys" and "bad guys", and it doesn't matter what race or color you are.  The main difference was that the Indians lived artful, natural lives, while we "white people" are basically suicidal and poisoning ourselves in our own pollution. 

Charlie rebelled and immediately became a "man of the people" - ALL the people.   His family had owned slaves pre-Civil War, although Charlie wasn't born until the end of it, in 1865.  Russell is the guy who really "turned Indian."  Once he saw the process with his own eyes, he couldn't help but join the Resistance, and defend Native peoples with all his abilities and resources.  Think of the film "Avatar" - basically the same story in futuristic terms, and we know James Cameron is a big fan of Montana!  He named the nuclear sub in "The Abyss" for us. 

And that is why the local Great Falls business community has always hated Russell, and tried to suppress or otherwise get rid of his work.  It's worth a lot in oil money, so that's where most of it has gone - to the Oil Barons and the the museums they established.  The proverbial "supply and demand." 

I finally got a chance to see the current watercolors exhibit at the Russell Museum here in Great Falls.  I was attending the Silent Film Festival, which outlined some of Russell's connections with Hollywood.  Both were excellent shows.  Although I was already familiar with most of the works, there, I hadn't seen many of the borrowed ones "in the flesh", so to speak.  Half or more are in Great Falls or Helena permanently, and others borrowed from private collectors.  The other big contributor was the Amon Carter Museum, which purchased the Mint Collection in the 1950's.
  
Russell's last big commission was for Doheny, the Los Angeles oil man whose mansion later became the home of the American Film Institute.  There are watercolor sketches for that commission, including the transition from the Plains Indians to oil fields, and we are told that Russell was not happy about having to include the latter for this oil millionaire.  (Nancy no doubt said, "Shut up and paint the damn picture.  He's paid us a fortune.")

Some of us have been diligently following this process (the expropriation of the Russell Legacy by the Oil Junta from Texas, Oklahoma, and California), and attempting to alter it whenever the opportunity arises.  Since I practically grew up playing around Russell's home and studio, and the beginnings of the Museum which now exists, I claim some right to have an opinion on these issues. 

Unfortunately, that's just about all that I can have or do.  And few, if any, listen.  There aren't a lot of people who share a love for the work of CM Russell who also have an understanding of the history and politics behind his work - especially that pertaining to Native Americans and their plight and struggle. 

For many, he has simply become a brand name - a "profit center" for our local community so that even something as simple and important as the Russell Auction cannot withstand the pressures of dealers, local convention and tourist businesses, and the demands of political expediency in managing the affairs of the City of Great Falls.  Randy Gray, we should remember, was a long-time chairman of the Russell Museum board.  And many other prominent local people served on it - few with any distinction or credit to themselves.  Replacing these people with a "National Board" (which does include a few wealthier Montanans - basically, you have to buy your way on to it) has been disastrous - even while the bricks and mortar (and debts) pile up. 

Several important works from the collection have already been sold, as well as the works of other Western artists closely associated with the Russell Tradition.  Imagine Russell as one of the 5 best-known French Impressionists.  That was approximately his stature among the Western American painters and sculptors (and writers, film-makers, etc.), and it still is.  His work is our greatest treasure, and using and abusing it as has been done in recent years (clearly marked by the firing of Elizabeth Dear and dispersing the archives she assembled regarding the Catalog Raisonne) is simply another sign of the decline and impending destruction of our Satanic nuclear garrison town. 

Question Authority - and oppose it

   
Who are the Agents of Authoritarianism?
The Law of Unintended (or concealed) Consequences

A phenomenon of great importance

Few people seem to recognize this "category", but it is part of the ethical "dark matter" which seems to permeate our positive moral universe.  We can see it everywhere, from drug prohibition (actually designed to maximize both criminal activity and the state police authority which supposedly "opposes" it) to our health care system, which is surely a disease and revenue producing system (actually designed to cause and perpetuate illnesses and unhealthy lifestyles), since doctors and other providers are now paid on the basis of how many "treatments" they provide, and thus have little or no incentive to actually make people healthier.  Indeed, that becomes a threat to their economic survival, which is compensated for by decreasing supply and increasing the monopoly power of the providers, thus leaving half or more of the population untreated or underserved. 

The very principle of "insurance" is  based on this.  Essentially, we are betting that bad things will happen.  And it is very difficult to prove causality when they actually do.  Thus, insurance is way more expensive for the prudent and safety-conscious than they would otherwise pay in a pool made up entirely of people like themselves. 

It used to be hard to get insurance if you are a "high risk" person with lots of claims.  The idea of compulsory insurance actually negates the very idea of insurance and risk-pooling, on a voluntary and market-regulated basis.  Instead, it becomes a government diktat which costs everyone two or three times more than an optimal distribution of the same resources and services would provide.  And so it goes with almost everything these days.

Public education is the most significant manifestation of this phenomenon.  I'm not talking about real public, community-based education.  I'm talking about our present system of vicious, coercive state monopolies utterly controlling a unified content of obedience, ignorance, and subservience, with some sort of lip service to "human rights" and "job training."  Our public education is so bad that many of us, when it was only 20% as bad as it is, today, despaired of ever fixing it, although we certainly had dozens of excellent plans and policies which could have transformed it into something approaching the "real public community-based" system. 

Site-based management (each school being autonomous and run by those on site, not a central bureaucracy), parent-teacher co-ops, neighborhood open schools where learning is available for everyone of all ages - these are just a few of the cogent and workable solutions which various groups and scholars have supported consistently for as long as there has been "public education."

The fact is, American public education is based on an earlier Prussian model, which derives from  the post-Napoleonic paranoia to create superstates with super armies to either be like Napoleon's Empire, or to be able to effectively counter and oppose it.  The educational arms race was on.  And it has never been more focussed than it is, today, with the competition between China and the US for global hegemony. 

The role of economists

Economists exist to sort these things out, and make the proper, scientific and rational determinations of  what our economy should and must provide, and how best to go about it.  Economists agree among themselves much more than the general public might suspect.  And we are not "socialists" or "free-marketeers" or even "pro-business."  We are SCIENTISTS - observers, researchers, predicters, truth-seekers, not dictators or "sycophants of the bourgeoisie," as Marx, himself a philosopher and economist, put it.  But of course we are.  Someone has to pay us, and it is, by definition, the bourgeoisie who control the money, jobs, and the rest of the economy. 

Another way to look at it is that economists are "engineers of the economy."  We're supposed to understand the nuts and bolts of how the economy works, so we can maintain it, and protect it from the many assaults, both foreign and domestic, which are launched against individual firms, sectors, or the economy as a whole. 

Perhaps we should pause a bit and consider the idea of "whole" and "parts".  Most people have heard of something being "more than the sum of its parts."  Yet, all the parts together must equal the whole.  That's a definition.  So, if more comes out of the "whole" than might have been predicted merely by looking at the parts, that is called "synergy" - created energy and power (wealth, influence, healthfulness - whatever we are dealing with).  It is something that entrepreneurs as well as social engineers accomplish regularly. 

The genius of the market (which hardly any leftists understand at all) is that it's all voluntary, and it coordinates all the disparate supplies and demands for goods and services.  YOU, the individual, decide what you want to do, what kind of education you want, what sort of transportation, food supply, health care system, retirement plan, etc.  And you get a fixed quantity of resources (called the "social product") - the earth itself, the free energy all around us, etc, plus the legacy of knowledge and techniques which is our common inheritance. 

When an oil or coal company moves in and strips out a billion dollars worth of oil or  coal, and maybe leaves the local community with a few hundred (now redundant) jobs and a mess of pollution, they have looted the "social product."  They have claimed our common heritage for their own.  And we agree with them - even "liberal Democrats", who trade off such pillage for a stay of execution for Social Security and Medicare. 

We need to rethink everything about "property", incomes policy, and what the rightful functions of a just and free state might be (if any).  Anarchists have long contended that it is the state, itself, which is the problem.  We don't need any "government" bigger than a rural county or urban neighborhood.  Anything else is likely to represent "capital" instead of people; war instead of peace, control instead of community.