Russell the Revolutionary

The following piece was written last summer.  I thought maybe I'd already published it as a blog or something, or included parts of it in another post, but I can't find it anywhere.  So, here it is.  

I didn't attend any of the Russell Auction events this year (not even the Native American shows, which I've usually visited in the past), but it looks as though nothing much has changed.  Artists who rent rooms and try to sell their works outside the auction format were reportedly disappointed,  while the main event auction at the Heritage Inn  was record-setting.  They still seem to be selling works out of the Museum, which is always tricky, and Tom Gilleon, a local artist I've met a time or two, had a work that sold for $225,000 - a record, they say, for a local, living artist in these auctions.  

What I did write about the Russell when I still had the Tribune blog was similar to this essay, so you may have already heard something like this from me.  The local "Charlie Russell community" is as diverse and often at odds with each other as any other group of independent thinkers, each with his or her own connections to the Russell legacy.  But I think we have turned the corner in finally doing what this essay proposes:  that we take back the Russell and his work from the boosters and promoters (and profiteers) whom Russell, himself, despised.  

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Russell the Revolutionary
7-11-12

Charles Bent Russell.  Remember that guy?  His mother was a Bent, his great-uncle killed at Taos in the territorial transition following the Mexican War.  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 enterprise based in St. Louis.  (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).

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 Charlie rebelled and recanted (his family had owned slaves pre-Civil War).  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.  And that is why the local Great Falls business community has always hated him, 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."  

Some of us have been diligently following this process, 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 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, a former Mayor, 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 in preparing the Catalogue Raisonne) is simply another sign of the decline and impending destruction of our Satanic nuclear garrison town, and the legal-political machines which control everything here.

What is a "legislator?"

More about problems with legislators and legislation

This might be considered an earlier and more detailed version of my post of a few day ago.  This one dates from the last Session, January 5, 2011.  It also elaborates on what we need to do to fix the education system (NOT "privatization", but more like "re-publicazation"  - what we have, now, is anything but a public system, as anyone knows who has suffered under it and its absurd rules and policies).  

What, exactly, is a "legislator?"  

In Montana, it's someone who has been elected to represent a Senate or House "District" in the Montana Legislature.  


What does this require or imply?  The short answer is "virtually nothing."  And with term limits, even the "on the job training" which used to allow the "successful" ones to keep running and stay in office no longer applies.  I was heartened to see that a few hours of the opening sessions of the 2011 Legislature were devoted to briefings by legal scholars.  At least, they recognized the problem.  

Basically, these "legislators" could just as easily have been picked at random, or according to some sort of popularity contest determined by how many people they know, or how much money they have to buy psychologically manipulative TV ads or slick brochures - in other words, how good they are as liars and manipulators of public opinion.  

There are no qualifications whatsoever in terms of their understanding or experience in government, the law, or any particular area of public policy expertise like the environment, infrastructure planning and maintenance, public education, law enforcement/prisons, etc.  And practically speaking, the only skills that count are fund-raising and maintaining an efficient media (propaganda and "public relations") machine.  

Legislators are not required to have a college degree, or even a high school diploma.  They don't have to believe in God, economics, engineering, environmental science, or any other sort of higher learning.  Nor do they have to be "ethical" in any meaningful sense.  All they have to do is to obey the "laws" which they themselves or their predecessors have already passed - which are very often contradictory or simply absurd.  

And most importantly, they don't even have to know what government is, or believe in any sort of principles underlying a free society, a Republic, a Democracy, or anything of the kind.  In many state legislatures, they do have to swear or affirm their support for the existing Constitution of the United States as well as their State Constitution.  It is clear that in Montana, many people have been elected who don't support or understand either one.  But this is derivative from the fact that those who vote for them needn't do so, either.  

Indeed, one need not be literate, well-informed, a property owner, gainfully employed, or possess any other qualities which would be necessary, say, to get a driver's license, automobile or health insurance, or secure a loan from a bank.  Yet, in Montana, a homeless person may be restricted from voting even if he has a PhD or some other superior demonstration of intelligence and respectability.  (It isn't clear that a homeless person would be barred from running for the Legislature, since one needn't live in the District being represented, but one might have to prove citizenship and a period of residency in the state).  But being born in a different country may make one's very presence here "illegal" - regardless of any other qualifications or interest in the future of Montana and the USA.

What, then, should be the sort of preparation which a real "legislator" or "congressperson" needs to have?  

I am not one to admire or defend the legal profession as it presently exists - much less the "criminal justice system" (now recognized as being little more than corporate slavery).  But the traditional preparation for the bar is certainly much of what a real legislator should have mastered.  

Law schools, of course, are a fairly recent invention, although the philosophy of law ("jurisprudence") has been an academic study throughout history.  Practicing lawyers, after a standard "liberal arts" education, were basically apprenticed, and many, like Abraham Lincoln, had no college or university education whatsoever.  They merely "read law" while working for a practicing lawyer or judge, and after years of such study, passed the bar exam.  Until fairly recently, one didn't need to go to law school in order to take the bar exam.  Like so many other fields, the major universities changed this to increase their own attendance and revenues.  

Merely being a great lawyer, teacher, accountant, physician, etc. is not enough to get a license to practice.  One must have the degree and "credits" from an accredited college or university.  Is it any wonder, then, that the professional class has become synonymous with self-regulating state monopolies?  

This is totalitarianism of the worst kind, because it deprives us of our basic rights to take responsibility for our own lives, and those of our families and communities.  If one doesn't have the right to learn, to heal, to produce one's own food and medicines, and trade the products of one's labor with others, how can we possibly be considered "free", or living in a "free society?"    

But getting back to what sort of preparation should be required of a Legislator, we can point to the "Greats" curriculum at Oxford centered on the study of the history of ideas - principally philosophy, politics, and economics.  One begins with a knowledge of Latin and Greek, or at least a thorough study of the classics in translation.  Nowadays, one might substitute one Asian language (Mandarin or Japanese, Hindu or Arabic) and one Romance language (French or Spanish) for the study of Greek and Latin.  But a knowledge of other languages (and cultures) is absolutely essential.

In most countries of the world, students complete their secondary education being able to fluently speak and understand at least two other languages besides their own.  There is no doubt in my mind that the decline of America's position in the larger world is due mainly to the fact that such requirements don't exist, here.  Indeed, such real education is actively discouraged in every field that promotes corporate interests and the economic/military power of the state.  

In "The Education of Henry Adams," the son and grandson of two Presidents, claimed that all one really needed to learn in school was German, French, Spanish, and mathematics.  All the rest could better be learned from life experience, from independent or guided reading, and the development and self-realization consistent with an ethical, free society.  He might have added "learning how to learn" and "becoming a life-long learner" - but that is implicit in what he wrote in the rest of the book.  

Most "progressive" or "humanistic" education theories support or emphasize those things, too, as well as having mentors and exemplars from whom one can learn directly.  Rows of students listening to a teacher lecture and completing reading and writing assignments is virtually worthless as a learning experience, yet that is what we spend most of our money on in "public education" - at the same time starving libraries and educational broadcasting, museums, music education, and all sorts of community programs which don't require massive spending and a whole professional class to maintain them.  No wonder so many opt for home schooling, unschooling, community schooling, or whatever.  

The seven medieval "liberal arts" were somewhat different than what we think of, today, and included grammar, logic, rhetoric (epistemology - the theory of knowledge as presented in speech as well as written composition/exposition), and the four branches of mathematics - arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.  With that foundation, one proceeded to study theology, ethics (moral science, including history and politics), medicine, and the natural sciences (primarily cosmology, biology, and other aspects of "natural philosophy.")

Paradoxically, the "liberal arts" today are considered irrelevant and useless - to be distinguished from "practical" studies like business, accounting, medicine, engineering, or scientific research, as well as the "fine arts".  Yet, it is obvious that the real Liberal Arts are the foundation for all other learning and practice.  In some respects, math and science are much better taught and understood than they were 50 or 100 years ago - even in American public schools, which rank near the bottom in achievement in these (and all other) subjects, relative to other "developed" prosperous nations. 

"Computer literacy" could go a long way towards enabling our society to function at a higher level.  However, simply being able to do e-mail or Facebook, or even spread sheets, CAD graphics, or other workplace skills seems to have little value in helping students (or future legislators) to think more clearly and critically.  

Artistic creativity is also much advanced in today's quality high schools, but such schools, instead of being the norm, are ever rarer and more exclusionary in their enrollments.  Most "education reform" now consists of closing down "failing schools", but few of those displaced can get into better ones.  In many cases, they literally have to "win the lottery."  Mostly, they are shunted into already overcrowded regular schools, thus forcing them to move from poor to totally failing.  

And the corporate "charter schools" have most of the same problems, with a much greater cost to the taxpayers and/or other sources of funding.  Still, they are so much superior to the failed state bureaucracy schools that virtually all public school students would attend an independent, self-governing charter school, magnet school, or other "reformed" institution if they had the means or were permitted to do so.  

In Montana, the public education system is very nearly as bad as it is in the inner cities.  Test scores (now a practically worthless measure of anything) are marginally better, but the numbers of students mastering calculus in the K-12 systems, for example, is still less than 10%.  I recently read that only 8% of college students are enrolled in a foreign language course - and this is NOT because they are already fluent in 2 foreign languages, as nearly all European, Japanese, Korean, or Russian students are.  

In America, we still hold on to the archaic "English system" of weights and measures, which even the English and Canadians no longer use.  This in itself costs us the equivalent of years of schooling in science, engineering, and international trade and other relations, since our high school and college graduates don't even think in the same terms as the rest of the world.  And we are arrogant and proud of the fact that other nations must adapt to our ignorance, rather than improving the quality of our own understanding!  

A knowledge of history is practically extinct in our secondary schools, and is certainly short-changed in the state colleges and universities - even for those who plan to teach history or broadfield social sciences.  Someone said that "All we learn from history is that we don't learn from history," and that is now taken to be a justification for ignoring our own history entirely - let alone that of other nations and peoples.  

The study of psychology is similarly reduced to psycho-babble, without history or context, and usually restricted to the ideas of "rehabilitation" or other counseling, rather than the development of the mind and spirit.  In my own field, economics, I have despaired of ever being able to communicate even the simplest concepts of value and cost, substitution, or the meaning of property, production, and trade.  I would venture to say that not one out of 10 Montana legislators understands the concept of "opportunity cost", or that more government spending and services requires more taxes on those most able to pay them.  It is as though the "laws" or principles of economics simply don't exist for government officials or legislators.  And even when they do, it's in the form of some sort of convoluted, special case idea like a Keynesian "stimulus" policy which is the equivalent of a shot of adrenalin (borrowed, costing 1/3 of one's annual income) for a body which is already in cardiac arrest.  

Instead of "future focus" and the 7th Generation Rule of Native Americans, our state and federal governments operate on the principle that "in the long run, we'll all be dead."  And even then, don't collect any taxes from the deceased.  Unlike the Federal government, Montana must have a "balanced budget," but there is no requirement that pension funds, Worker's Comp, or other future liabilities must be taken into account.  Meanwhile, the "conservative, free-market" (itself a contradiction in terms) advocates claim that any "surplus" must be "given back" to "those who earned it" - meaning, usually, millionaires or billionaire corporations who have stolen or expropriated their wealth at the expense of Nature, indigenous people, or the working poor - not to mention the less-wealthy and powerful taxpayers.  Military force, "the criminal justice system," and the printing press are the sources of all this "surplus" wealth - not the "discipline" and "entrepreneurial genius" of a few patent-holders and the highly-trained, privileged, and organized "professional class."

One needn't even go into foreign policy and our local global nuclear military strategies to realize that we are on a course which could easily end human civilization as we know it, at any time.  Yet, those are issues which you will never see discussed in the Montana legislature, except to lobby for more budget-busting "missions" of the same kind. 

Continuing to burn coal and other carbon-based fossil fuels, alone, will mean the end of the world as we have known it during the past 10,000 years.   Yet, our governor and a majority of the cabinet (all Democrats, at this point) see nothing wrong with accelerating this process.  Thus, it is especially important to recognize Superintendent Juneau and Attorney General Bullock for their votes against leasing more state land to the coal monopolies.  One wonders if they would have voted the same way if "their side" was in the majority.  Many such votes are only possible because they are meaningless - i.e., the other three Democrats were able to take the heat, while a Native American and an Attorney General really interested in justice obviously couldn't do so.  In any case, they are to be commended - especially Juneau, whose own budget would have been reduced, under existing funding formulas, by the failure to lease the School Trust lands for coal development.  

But to add insult to injury, the price at which these irreplaceable coal resources were leased, was only a small fraction of its market value.  One can only marvel at the other 3 Democrats on the Land Board - all of them supported by the Montana Conservation Voters and other environmental groups - and their flagrant disregard for the most basic environmental (and fiscal) responsibility.   And yet, "liberal, progressive" pundits claim to be totally mystified why those who voted Democrat in 2008 largely stayed home in the mid-term elections, and why the Republicans won by a landslide.  

What is "legislation," and do we really need more of it?

Advice for state legislators

Or, what is "legislation", and do we really need  more of it?

I have often tried to give some advice to state legislators, who have been fed a toxic brew of corporate lies and propaganda by an organization called ALEC since the 1980's.  ALEC was started by some of the same people I knew as a Young Republican.  I didn't like them, then, and needless to say, having more wealth and power has not improved the quality of their leadership and "model legislation. "  So, here is the "anti-ALEC":

1.  Even if you run as a Republican or Democrat, do NOT join or participate in your local party organization. You don't have to.  You don't even have to join your party caucus in the legislature.  Call yourself a public servant, and that's it. 

2.  As soon as you have been elected, declare yourself free of party influence, and instead, form a local council of people from your district who voted for you, and who are known to you as being honest, knowledgeable,  and public-spirited.

3.  Learn some basic  economics.  This is easier said than done.  If you're a "liberal", you'll end up thinking that Keynes was God, and that perpetual deficit spending is the only way to prosperity.  If you're a conservative or otherwise "free market," you'll be told that welfare is evil, corporate criminals are your only friends, and the only people responsible for "creating jobs" and "balancing the budget"- unless you  happen to live in a military town, in which case you'll be told that the more money spent on weapons and killing people, the better-off we'll all be.  Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom is actually quite good.  So is Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.  Just understanding the concept of "opportunity cost" would be a major advance over present legislative and state administrative thinking.  

4.  Military people tend to see everything in military terms.  They can't conceive of a society which isn't dominated by military discipline and "order."  They can't conceive of a world without "enemies", and the duty of a soldier is to kill anyone the President and Congress designate as "enemies."  Congress has abdicated its responsibility, over and over again, to maintain cordial relations with other nations in the world.  The President and the "secret government" behind him is totally subservient to military lobbies and "strategic thinking" based on "Mutually Assured Destruction" and "Full Spectrum Dominance.  And it's like pro-sports.  It's all about "us vs. them" and maximizing profits, and has little to do either with sport or with national security and legitimate "defense". Legislators must take back their  constitutional authority in this respect, and refuse to allow state troops (the National  Guard) being deployed on corporate missions to loot and destroy other countries overseas.  Several states have already done this, and there is wide public support for it.
  
5.  Simple sanity.  This is another standard which only a few understand, and many misuse or misrepresent.  For example, you don't give psychoactive drugs to school children.  If they need drugs, they shouldn't be in school, and the schools should certainly have nothing to do with cooperating in such a program.  
Any group of parents, for any reasons, should be free to educate their own children in their own way, with the same taxpayer support which the large prison-schools receive.  We already reimburse local school districts according to attendance, so we can just as well pay alternative schools for the students who attend them. 

Whatever "regulation", testing, or other standards are needed may be applied, to make sure that they are real schools or other learning places, and real learning is happening, with the full participation of the parents and students, themselves.   Although many might object, the decision to give taxpayer money to private, religious schools is debatable.  Most other countries with large independent school systems also support religious schools, and deciding what are "real religions" and what are merely "cults" is difficult.

The large, "consolidated" public schools, although they sometimes work well, only do so if they have the full support of the parents and local communities.  In today's fractious climate of corporate gang warfare and suppression of any and all free inquiry by authoritarians of all stripes, a bureaucratic, centralized, rule-bound public school bureaucracy is nothing less than the final stage of dictatorship.  

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Now, for a little background as to how I arrived at this information.

Friedrich Hayek, who visited my neighborhood for about 5 months in 1968, wrote a very good book at that time called Law, Legislation, and Liberty, published in three volumes by the University of Chicago Press.  By some dialectical  perversity, I actually sat in on and got credit for the initial presentation of that work in a UCLA philosophy seminar.  They didn't even put professor's names on our transcripts in those days, so everyone here thinks I made it up - obviously I couldn't have studied under such a famous conservative - or counter-revolutionary, to some of my Marxist friends.  

There's  a lot more to it than that, and why Hayek should have been there, doing that, at that time.  His title, which no one now remembers, was Visiting Flint Professor (of Law, Philosophy?)  I don't know who Flint was - I should google it, but UCLA was ranked 4th in the country, then, in Legal Philosophy, and there were a couple of professors who also taught in the Law School.  I was an economics-philosophy major, and later tried being a grad student in philosophy, which only lasted two quarters, during which time I took psychedelics and became "enlightened".  Professor Yost and other senior faculty actually taught "expanded consciousness" with such texts as William James' Varieties of Religious Experience as well as the more recent psychedelic literature, which by then included Aldous Huxley, the Beats, etc.  Woodstock Nation was being born at that very time, and of course LA was one of the hubs of this New Consciousness.  

The fact that I used psychedelics AFTER studying with Hayek totally negates his influence, right?  The slate was wiped clean.  But they don't really change you that much - especially in an academic setting.  We used to say that the only thing psychedelics do is bring out the "real you" - they liberate us from our family and cultural biases and presuppositions, although we quickly learn that most of what is old, is good.  Experience matters.  So, nothing much really changed except that we became more "old fashioned", "folksy", or otherwise "down home," (and anti-science and technology, in many cases) and those of us closely tied to the land and a particular regional history soon returned home.  "All the Buffalo Returning," so to speak.  

About the first thing I did when I returned to Montana in January, 1972, was request a catalog and application from the UM Law School.  In part, this was due  to my having been "profiled" (as a hippy), arrested, charged with spurious crimes, and otherwise fallen victim to an "establishment" which I had previously thought I was part of.  I had been Vice President of the Bruin Young Republicans.  I was a libertarian.  I read all of Hayek's books in anticipation of his coming to UCLA.  And after these seminars, I really understood what "the Law" is, what is good about it, and what is wrong. 

Briefly, Hayek's view was that there are two kinds of law - Nomos and Thesis.  One is "exogenous" or imposed from without by "authority".  The other is "endogenous" or internal, built-in, etc.  We come hard-wired with moral principles, which can either be accentuated and reinforced by parental guidance and childhood experience, or negated by that later "training."  The English Common Law is a good example of how people, over centuries, establish the rules and principles for civilized and harmonious living.  This is the real Law.  The stuff that legislators do is purely administrative - how to tax, provide public services, "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."  The two kinds of law are very different, yet in the American system, they are totally confused and conflated.  And "coalitions of organized interests" (Hayek's expression) control the Congress and State Legislatures almost totally.  

So, what we needed (and still need) is a Constitution which recognizes these two kinds of law, and keeps them separate.  Hayek proposed a two-house Congress in which the House of Representatives would be the main unicameral "legislature" or Parliament, and another "Upper House" would be something like the British House of Lords, in which members would be elected for life (at the age of 40, and only by their own age-cohort - the other 40 year-old's in that year).  This body would deal with broader issues and long-term consequences, creating overall policy and even acting (as the Lords does) as a Supreme Court determining the validity and appropriateness of whatever the main Parliament passes on.  But it would not  be partisan, it would not have to face elections, and it could be insulated (like the Supreme Court) from any organized interests trying to use laws and legislation to benefit themselves or their organized group. 

How many members would it have?   Hayek suggested two from each age cohort over 40.  So, if the average age of death was 80, there would be 2 x 40, or 80 members.  By the age of 40, there would be a number of people with national reputations who could run for this, and it would be very prestigious.  Hillary Clinton is my age, as is Brian Kahn (the Charlie Rose of Montana, only better), etc.  

I don't know if Hayek ever studied the Iroquois Confederation and its system, which our Framers did.  They also have a three-council government, with the "fire keepers" being a kind of buffer or referee between the other two (which could easily be geared to gender or other function - labor/capital, military/civilian, or some combination of these).  I've long believed that we should either have a Women's House and Men's House, or else one man and one woman being elected from each district.  For some strange reason, I've never met a feminist who supports that!

All of these should have been discussed in Montana's Constitutional Convention of 1972, and I was prepared to go and participate, but not having been elected, and our neighbor Bob Woodmansey having been, I was out.  I had been arrested a couple of times as a teen-ager in Great Falls.  But I never thought of myself as "an enemy of society" or threat to anyone.  Indeed, I was often bullied and punished in other ways for things I had no connection with at all.  

By  1972,  I was a political radical.  But I didn't consider myself either a Leftist or a Rightist.  I was a Survivalist - something I probably learned from Boy Scouts and just growing up in a heavily militarized post WWII environment. 

Still, being arrested after earning a college degree and having done some notable, worthwhile things, was a major wake-up call.  Suddenly, I  became very interested in the plight of the poor and minorities, as well as gays, atheists, and other traditionally persecuted minorities.  What the psychedelics had done was to have removed my fears and inhibitions - "the thin veneer of civilization" which had prevented me from violating the delusions of the middle class.  Being arrested and getting to hang out with murderers and mafia-types for awhile was worth a law degree in itself, and I didn't need to go to school anymore.  

Like most universities, UCLA had a large pool of academic hangers-on who were neither students nor teachers.  They used the libraries, visited lectures, and otherwise "crashed" the system which they (correctly) believed, belong to the people.  Sometimes they worked for the university (which I did for more than 2 years after I graduated).  UC was tuition-free in those days, so there was no need to fight for "scholarships."  Just having an interest and showing up was sufficient (of course, it was difficult to get admitted to student or graduate status, but not nearly so much so as it is, today.  I had excellent test scores - they were APTITUDE tests, in those days, and no one studied for them.).  

One thing that still puzzles me is pricing and other cost-accounting for government, taxpayer-provided services.  Like heath care, there is no provision for ordinary people purchasing what they need in an open market.  It's  all about monopolies, licenses, corporate lobbying and extortion, med school bottlenecks, Federal programs and kick-backs, vast disparities in pay even among those who work in the same fields, etc.  How did we ever get to this?  Who can possibly believe that this kind of system is workable or good for us?  
Basic primary care is  very cheap - even if doctors are paid $200K a year.  With nurse practitioners, who make somewhat less, but may be better primary care providers, it costs even less.  We needn't get into the thorny topic of medical politics and elitism - apparently, it's always been that way.  But we know that real health care (as opposed to the "health insurance" racket) is charitable, spiritual, and otherwise real medicine and "hospitality", not some sort of protection racket which says: "Your money or your life."  "No insurance? No credit?  No shoes?  No service."  "There's a hospice across the street.  They'll let you die, there."  "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."  

And with this kind of "system", we pay anywhere from 2-5 times more in the name of health care (most of which is simply stolen or extorted) than any other country, and we're the least healthy in the whole OECD (the so-called "developed world).  

Bill Moyers and the Liberal Consensus

We were talking about eggs.  

"I am only an egg," said the Martian in Stranger in a Strange Land. It's what Mork came in.

BILL MOYERS: So humor me for a moment. I'm the proverbial Martian coming to earth sent by Martian control to report back home on what I can learn about this banking and political culture down here on this weird planet. And I come to you for help because you have this interstellar reputation for telling it as it is. How would you sum up this financial and political culture so that I can give a believable report back up there?

from  
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-banking-on-greed/

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What's wrong with Bill Moyers?

It's time I finally "took a stand" on Bill Moyers - whose most recent target has been our own Sen. Max Baucus, caught once again with his hand in the drug coffers.  Like it or not, Bill Moyers is one of the very few serious journalists with a national audience who is still working.  Of course, the fact that he basically designed and created PBS, as LBJ's Press Secretary in the 1960's, may have something to do with it.  Still, I have serious reservations against recommending him and his shows and "philosophy" - whatever they might be.  

While listening to a discussion yesterday on the "legality" of drones with several different "liberal" players in this debate, I  was struck, once again, by their rigid legalisms, reflected in their "concerns" as to whether or not foreign or domestic "drone strikes" (targeted assassinations) were "constitutional" or otherwise legitimate and defensible.  I'm screaming at the radio: "What part of "Thou Shalt Not Kill" don't you understand?"  

Murder is always "wrong" and "illegal", and contrary to civilized behavior - even in an allegedly "free society".  It is the original "capital crime" - taking another's life fully justifies forfeiting one's own. And what about Ecocide - wantonly and intentionally destroying the planet which sustains us all?  Surely that is even more "capital," as crimes go.  

Even "conservatives" and other members of the 1% opposed bank robbery, whether  it is the banks that are robbing or being robbed - the other topic under discussion in this Moyers and Company broadcast.   They did ask and reflect on why none of the bankster crooks and their elected or appointed regulatory cronies have been prosecuted.  

The common denominator, here, is Statism - the idea of Authority (and why it must not be questioned or opposed/exposed), the National Interest, which is invariably equated with the interests of Big Business, Finance Capitalism, the 1%, or whatever you want to call them.  L'etat, c'est them.  

Moyers, like most Texans and other Americans, is a Statist.  He believes that the "duly constituted government" - the State - is and perhaps even should be Omnipotent.  It has, as Ayn Rand said, "a monopoly on force."  I remember being astounded when some of her acolytes defended that, and thought it was a good thing.  But of course, as a public figure and extremely popular and influential, how could she say otherwise?

When Moyers worked for the Johnson Administration, he was a loyal servant.  You  have to be to get and hold that job, and few people hold it for very long - even a single presidential term.  So, that is a reason not to listen to him at all, and if it were simply a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with Bill Moyers and his "philosophy", I wouldn't be listening at all.  But he has very distinguished and diverse guests, now tending more to the "classical liberal" (corporate libertarian) position than the peace, justice and other public spirited activists who do not hold positions of wealth and influence.  Many of his guests over the years have been intellectual and spiritual leaders of the first rank, as well as a lot of pop gurus like Joseph Campbell, the Dali Lama, scientists and poets, theologians and statesmen, etc.  So, we get to hear a pretty good presentation, with Moyers' guidance and questioning, of our current situation and how we might go about repairing it.

So, why is Statism bad?  Our present government supposedly rests on "the consent of the governed."  It can only legitimately do what the people want and demand of it, according to a venerable Constitution which says, among other things, that our government was established to:
  
"Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."   And it makes very clear that "unenumerated powers" rest with the individual states or the people.  Somehow, "liberals" never want to discuss or hear about this part of the story.  Weren't the  "Framers" just a bunch of ignorant farmers, small businessmen, and slaveowners/drivers?  Why should we listen to anything they said, or follow any of the rules or Constitution they promulgated?

Great!  Let's be revolutionaries, then!  Let's have a new Constitution!  That view, too, is taboo.  

Abraham Lincoln was obviously stuck on the "more perfect union" idea, also part of the Preamble, and somehow concluded that an enforced union of unwilling participants was "more perfect."  We have been living with that mistake ever since.  That's when the United States ceased to be a voluntary confederation of independent states, and became, instead, a "World Power" and Imperial Nation-State encompassing hundreds of millions of people. 

By violating  this basic covenant, the USA has lost its moral legitimacy, and that's the only legitimacy which actually matters.  It is "making a mistake" from the get-go, and as we all know, if you get off on the wrong foot, you need to stop and regroup, not continue the wrongful course into oblivion. 

Another good metaphor, which I have used since I was in college, is that gangster capitalism functions like a cancer.  It  takes over the immune system, the blood supply, even the brain and its control of behavior and bodily systems.  Our government has been shanghaied and diverted into destroying the systems and communities which it was supposed to facilitate and defend, "eating out the substance" of the people and local economies like a foreign army of occupation.  

There was a news broadcast following Moyers about the Post Office dropping Saturday mail delivery in order to "save money" and "return to profitability."  Again, I was screaming at the radio:  "It's not about making money  or profitability.  It's a Cabinet-level department of the Federal Government, a public service, the basic Federal presence in our local communities, and it IS "enshrined in the Constitution." In fact, it was created by one of the main authors of the Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence - that guy on the $100 bill, Benjamin Franklin.  "A penny saved is a penny earned," was one of his maxims. 

Basically, we no longer have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people (Lincoln's charming - and fictional - coinage).  We have a predatory rogue state, totally out of control, and bent on world domination and totalitarian control over every aspect of our lives, our work, our relationships, even our thoughts and dreams.  It is psychotic and sociopathic - just listen to the ALEC-drenched Republicans in Helena and Congress.  The Taliban aren't attacking Montana.  It's Montana and all the other NATO conspirators against world peace who are attacking Afghanistan, Yemen, and a hundred other countries and local communities who only wish to relate to the rest of the world peacefully and for mutual benefit and enlightenment.  

Are there other criminal states in the world besides the United States?  Certainly.  We didn't invent the category.  Indeed, we were originally established precisely to get away and isolate ourselves from such states and empires.  So, why have we rejoined them, and with some apparent "vengeance" when all the wrong seems to be on our side?  There's only one explanation.  Ideology, the corporate media, state propaganda (enshrined in our once free and local Public Schools), public broadcasting, etc.  It's all state propaganda.  It all serves the 1% and gangster capitalism (AKA the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Pharmaceutical-Education-Prison Complex).  

There is no more independent judiciary.  The function of the law is no longer to protect our rights and freedoms, while maintaining fairness and justice in our everyday exchanges and relationships.  It is to further enrich the 1% and, most concretely, lock up, register, and monitor the behavior and thinking of nearly every American citizen, not to mention the rest of the world.  We are a Prison State, and one which must be forcefully resisted at every turn if we are to regain our freedom and sanity.  

Believe it or not, Muslim children are not obsessed with attacking American symbols of power like the WTC and Pentagon.  They used to like Americans and want to be like us, with our "high standard of living", good schools, free enterprise (Mohammed, MHNBP, was a merchant), etc.  Muslims largely created what we call "the modern world" based on science and mathematics, medicine, humane treatment of women and minorities, free trade, and limited government.   We have our problems and they have theirs, exacerbated by the insatiable demand for irreplaceable fossil fuels - one resource which the Arab world retained in abundance from its glorious Caliphate of 1000 years ago.  

But do they, should they, could they have designs on our wealth, as well?  If something is stolen from you with the use of illegitimate state power, does that mean it's OK?  Should they now become "patriotic" and love their new masters and tormentors? 

Even though more Muslims now live in the United States than Jews, they have little political power, and Israel continues to dominate and control American foreign policy against the interests of Palestinians and other indigenous people in the Middle East, as well as all the rest of us who don't care to support or surrender to  military occupation, surveillance, taxation, confiscation, rape, and slavery.  The Taliban, Al Qaeda (if, indeed, any such organization ever existed outside of CIA operations), and other "radical Islamic" movements and organizations ask nothing of the USA and its people except the withdrawal of US and NATO forces, with their drones and other instruments of resource theft, slavery, murder and assassination. 

It would be simple enough to do this, if we actually had a Congress and President who acted responsibly.  But of course we don't.  They don't seem to have any idea  what this would entail, or how to go about it.  And once, again, it is the media, public education, the law schools, the political scientists, and the public universities in general who are to blame, by sins of omission and commission.   

I suppose one must thank Bill Moyers for something, and that would be his commitment to truth-based journalism and vigilance in protecting the public interest.  It hasn't been easy for him to do this, and powerful  forces have resisted and suppressed his shows for many decades.  Not even journalists as great as Ed Murrow and Dan Rather could defend themselves against the CBS advertisers and stockholders.  

In one of his  last books, Leslie Fiedler asked, "What Was Literature?"  Now, 30 years or so later, we might ask "What Was Journalism?"   We seem to have forgotten entirely the power and supremacy of ideas, of scientific research, and of ancient and perennial wisdom.  Too bad, because that's what our civilization was based on.  

Why do people think it's "Jobs vs. The Environment"?

A child's view of economic development....

Being in my second childhood, I often look at things from a child's perspective, extending through college and my various youthful explorations thereafter.  And I can tell you, it's all starting to fit together.  As children, we tend to take everything for granted.  Whatever it is, it must be so.  Everything is new to us, so if it exists, it must work - at least for the grown-ups, who are responsible for everything.  

Adolescence is a time when we re-learn the nature of reality.  Suddenly, everything is about sex and money; who you know, who your family is, what school you go to, what church you belong to, what neighborhood you live in, etc.  Everything becomes problematical.  Even if you know who and where you are or want to be, how do you get there, or even maintain your present status?  And what if you don't like the exalted status of your family?  Can you trade it off for something else?  How do we do this?   What rules are we supposed to follow?  There are so many that we can't even know, let alone follow, them.

And after a lifetime of success (or failure, dispossession, broken relationships, illness, madness, or whatever), what should we think, now that we are "senior citizens" who have always been outspoken in our views and behavior?  Should we suddenly "retire" and go fishing, or play golf, bridge, gossip, baby-sit, volunteer, travel, or what?  What if we have no means (or desire) to do these things?  Then, we might simply go ahead with our work, since we were never paid for it, anyway, and now we at least get enough from Social Security to pay rent, buy food, and take advantage of health care programs. 

The latest project I'm contesting involves the placement of an industrial park in my home town of Great Falls - named, of course, for the Great Falls of the Missouri, which we have managed to almost totally obliterate and destroy by placing 5 hydro-electric dams and their silt-filled reservoirs directly behind them.  And the silt turns out to contain a lot of heavy metals, some of them quite valuable, from the Anaconda Copper smelter  (electrolytic refining center, using the cheap hydropower right next to it).  

An industrial park, within sight and smell of the two closest Falls, Giant Springs, and the world-renowned Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, was approved this week by the City Commission.  Only a few diehard environmentalists from the Missouri River Citizens bothered to protest.    Some  Fish, Wildlife and Parks (or maybe USFS, which runs the Lewis and Clark center - Giant Springs is a State Park) testified against it, and they probably got in trouble for doing so.  In any case, their testimony was totally disregarded. 
Jane Weber, now a Cascade County Commissioner (just re-elected), was the long-time Director of the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  I wonder how much of this is directed at her?  She might very well assume that it would be a conflict of interest for her to either oppose or favor this proposal.  As for Democrats vs Republicans, and other "civic leaders" nearly all favor any sort of "economic development" over environmental, cultural, or historical preservation values.  Most people I know have simply given up, refusing to subject themselves to the hatred and contempt they get from politicians and union bosses, as well as their friends, clients, employers, or others for "opposing economic development."   

The Anaconda Smelter closed in 1981 (basically as a public service by Atlantic Richfield, which bought Anaconda, promising to double investment in the Montana facilities, and then closing them down).  So, nearly all signs of that vast facility which once employed 5000 highly-paid union workers are gone.  Reindustrialization is on the way, but local people are at odds about how we should go about this, and where it should be located.   

For the past 30 years, we've been trying to rehabilitate what was essentially a Superfund Site, with thousands of acres of real estate, including the town of Black Eagle, yards, farmland, parks, a golf course, along with the smelter property, itself, contaminated with various toxins and poisons to a depth of several feet, and now only covered by a thin layer of sod and fill-dirt.  The whole thing may have to be dug up and hauled away.

Meanwhile, the lack of a "shovel-ready industrial park" has been used as an excuse for the repeated failures of several generations of local "economic development" agencies to attract any large projects to Great Falls.  But nearly every project envisioned and promoted (like the now-defunct coal-fired "Highwood Generating Station") was totally unsuited to our past, our future, and the economy as a whole.  Another example is the proposed ethanol plant, which has been "ready to happen" since the late 1970's.  In fact, converting corn or small grains to alcohol does little or nothing to reduce our carbon footprint, global warming, and actually wastes a lot of farmland which should be used to produce food, or even restored to native grasses for ecologically sustainable meat production. 

I don't believe there is anyone in Great Falls who opposes sustainable economic development which is consistent (not in conflict) with existing businesses, cultural treasures, our unique landscape of the river, the Falls, and Giant Springs.  What we question, and simply cannot understand, is why the GFDA has repeatedly chosen sites and strategies are probably the least favorable to all these other values we treasure.  Especially when there are other sites readily available, and projects which require no such compromises with our quality of life and local economy.   Instead, they mix it all together as a "package deal."  We must take it or leave it, and if we leave it, it will be the fault of "the other party" if not environmentalists, peace activists, unions, etc. 

The biggest disappointment to me is the union leadership, which is almost invariably anti-environment and even anti-historical preservation, tourism, and the like.  The unionized working class totally ruled Great Falls for nearly a century.  Small shop owners and other family businesses were a real "middle class" which thrived, prospered, and generally led the good life like few other places in the world, largely because their customers and neighbors were highly-paid union workers.  As late as the 1960's, Montana was one of the top 5 states in personal income (now we are near the bottom, and have been for many years).  Every job in Great Falls down to clerks, food-servers, and bartenders was unionized.  The City ran many essential services, with the rest being closely regulated so they were considered to be the best jobs available, with great consumer service and among the lowest costs in the nation.  The workers were well-paid, everyone felt safe and secure, and you could trust businesses to treat you fairly and like a friend, instead of an adversary or victim.  What happened?  Could the transition to "a nuclear garrison town" have anything to do with this?  Many of us think so. 

We had a pride of place, not least of all because of the Smelter, the Falls, and Giant Springs, which we claimed was "the largest freshwater springs in the world" and was mentioned in the Lewis and Clark Journals.  It turns out, we're only the 5th biggest spring in North America, Florida actually having a much larger one, which I can't figure out because Florida doesn't have any mountains, and ours comes through the Madison Aquifer from the Little Belt mountains.

In my long monitoring of civic and economic affairs (often confused with "military affairs" in Great Falls, since it was a military operation - the Corps of Discovery- which established us as a US colony and future strategic missile base), I have come  to recognize some recurrent patterns and processes (or "dynamics" - changes over time) which seem to define our local political economy.  Let me describe a few of them which come to mind....

(1) The political discourse is deplorable.  It's like there are two sets of books - one used by the Chamber of Commerce, the GF Development Authority, City and County Commissions, etc, and a different one used to explain and justify their actions to the taxpayers and voters.  And the discrepancies between the two are devastating to any sort of long-term public policy or planning, as we are being told one thing while being led or forced to do the opposite. 

(2) Law and "regulation" has come to mean nothing more nor less than a transfer of power to lawyers and the state at the expense of the rest of us.  So, of course everyone is against it.  And worst of all, it would seem is "environmental regulation", which is taken to be a calculated attack on jobs and the local economy. 

(3) The statement "We need jobs, so we can't afford to  protect the environment" is endemic in our political discourse.  In similar fashion, local military contractors and profiteers keep telling us that war and more military spending is the way to prosperity.  For them, perhaps, but at the expense of everyone else, and ultimately it will ruin the country - if only by turning us into a garrison state at war with all the rest of the world. 

(4) Since we're thinking in military terms, perhaps we should acknowledge that we are a heartbeat away from having a literal "Military Governor" in Montana - the former head of the Montana National Guard is our new Lieutenant Governor - a demotion, to be sure, since he was already a General, right?  But so was Eisenhower, Grant, Washington, and a few others.  Surely they considered their roles as President to be more important, or was it merely a "retirement job"?  In any case, there are plenty of problems to solve, and people available to solve them.  It just takes doing and the much-vaunted "leadership" which seems to be in short supply these days. 

(5) Some people calling themselves "libertarians" are opposed to any sort of economic or environmental regulation - or at least they oppose the bureaucratic top-down command and control systems driven by political expediency (which would be my position, as well).  We consider such regulatory systems as "weapons",  just as the law, itself, is a weapon which, in Montana at least, is used indiscriminately on the just and unjust, alike. 

(6) Trying to get a lawyer to take a principled and rational stand on any issue is next to impossible.  They simply don't speak that language.  It's all about winning and "settlements" which avoid any public testimony, subpoena's, or juries who might not understand (or too well understand) the racket that is going on, here.  So, instead of working together to achieve a cleaner, healthier, and more functional society and economy, we waste a huge amount of talent and treasure fighting and trying to ruin each other - "the other party" or whatever scapegoats are at hand ("illegal aliens", welfare queens, gays portrayed as "pedophiles", radical environmentalists, peace activists, labor unions, teacher's unions, liberals, socialists, etc.). 

(7) Meanwhile, the real criminals are carefully protected by the state and its institutions, with their own expansion or "growth rates" the real object of public policy - not growth in incomes or quality of life for everyone.  It's  all a zero-sum game - the rich can only get richer, they believe, by making the poor, poorer, and by lowering taxes and other expenses which - they forget - fuels the predatory state which they control.  Apparently, they've forgotten what they do, or how they got there.  (Actually, groups like ALEC are quite sophisticated about this - they support police and prison-guard unions, for example, because they are necessary for the police-prison state which ALEC was created to establish). 

And so it goes.  ALEC leaders  have again taken control of the Montana Legislature.  While Steve Bullock is still Attorney General, perhaps he could launch an investigation against ALEC which would identify who in Montana has been associated with it, and what their agendas and resulting legislation and policy decisions have accomplished?  After a decade of following this organization and its many critics, I'm convinced that nearly every harmful, destructive policy enacted over the past 30 years is attributable to it, and to its kindred Heritage Foundation and several other "think tanks".  Although most people think ALEC is "libertarian," it is not.  In fact, it takes the opposite of the libertarian position on nearly every issue.  Even the Cato Institute, which is also financed by the Koch brothers, rarely agrees with ALEC's "model legislation", and of course Cato is diverse and represents a number of different libertarian thinkers.  As far as I can tell, the Koch's only recently began to fund and cooperate with ALEC, which was originally envisioned as a defense and "law and order" group extending prison sentences, and protecting its alcohol, guns, and tobacco clients from the ruinous competition from cannabis and cocaine.  Other major causes include the "health insurance" racket, pharmaceutical cartels, agribusiness, etc., etc.  As well as opposition to organized labor, environmental protection, and any mechanisms to combat global warming or climate change, which ALEC denies is human-caused, entirely.  Unlike Cato, ALEC is rigidly doctrinaire.  They have set positions on every issue, and they rigorously condition legislators, judges, etc. to follow it. 

So, that's what we're really up against.  Whether an industrial park is built next to Giant Springs and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center means nothing - especially if they can "prove", as they apparently have, that no pollution will escape, and the Madison Aquifer will not be affected.  That is how they've framed the debate, and since we no  longer have a free press or any open discussion of the alternatives, that's what we're stuck with.  

The Dream of Pembina: A Montana Saga

Montana's Exceptionalism, Or,
Ultra-Montanism in Theory and Practice


From Stephen Vincent Benet's "Western Star"

"That sun-dance has been blotted from the map.
Call as you will, those dancers will not come
To tear their breasts upon the bloody strap,
Mute-visaged, to the passion of a drum,
For some strange empire, nor the painted ghosts
Speak from the smoke and summon up the hosts."

One thing I learned from Joe Howard's "Strange Empire" is that Louis Riel was an "Ultra-montanist" (literally, "beyond the mountains" or present human experience - viz., utopian).  When I looked that up in Wikipedia, I found that it was understood to be an extreme form of Papal Infallibility, and the supremacy of the Papacy over all of the Church (not to mention the planet).  Obviously, Riel was a driven man, thoroughly influenced by his seminary teachers and his own fervant faith.  So, call that a good thing.

And of course he is counted among our greatest intellectual and spiritual forefathers in Montana - teacher,  revolutionary, and prophet.  This was his "wilderness period" between his two revolutionary insurgencies against the tyranny of the British Empire.  This was where he married and had children.  Montana, we find, was his real spiritual home. 

================

Half a century ago, when I first began reflecting on Montana's place in the U.S. and the world, I noticed that only Montana resembled the whole United States in its geographical profile. 

Although we were definitely a "Northern State", many have written about Montana's strong Southern - even Secessionist - tendencies.  One of the first big gold strikes was at Confederate Gulch in what is now Meagher County.  Helena was heavily settled by ex-Confederate soldiers and sympathizers, as was the Bitterroot and several other parts of Montana. 

Great Falls became virtually a segregated town after about 1920, and right up to the 1960's, we're told.  There has always been a substantial Black population here, and both Belt and Cascade count Black women among their founders.  Fort Shaw was home to the "Buffalo Soldiers", and named for the Union Colonel Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick in the film, "Glory."  Yet, a perusal of my GFHS Roundups from the early 1960's show a total of two black students, and about the same number of Native Americans, out of the dozens or hundreds who lived here.  Many more went to Central Catholic High School (now the public alternative - VoTech high school and adult education center) with less than 1/4  the student population of Great Falls High.   Many Catholics also attended the public schools as circumstances or interests changed.  (There was no CM Russell High School, yet). 

When I arrived at a large urban, cosmopolitan university, I found that my own prejudices were quite extreme, although I didn't have any racist ideology to go with them, and soon found myself identifying with the "underclass" of whatever race or background.  Children don't really "get" racism (or any other bigotry or xenophobia), unless it's beaten into their heads by adult parents, teachers, or other role models.  Custer was the "bad guy" in our family, and we always had an interest in leftist or "radical" thinking of whatever kind.  But it was always open and critical, never dogmatic or "conspiratorial."

One of the first serious pieces I wrote for a daily newspaper (the Missoulian) was about the possibility of Montana withdrawing from the United States, and either joining Canada, or forming a new nation out of adjoining Northern Rockies states and Provinces.  Little did I know in those days that this was precisely Louis Riel's vision for Pembina - a Metis, Catholic Republic which would maintain the culture and sovereignty of the various French-Canadian tribes and their less-"developed" and "integrated" counterparts to the West.  That piece was never published, but the Missoulian editors assured me they discussed it, and found it very interesting. 

It would be another 30 years before I finally read Joseph Kinsey Howard's "Strange Empire," which is a real history of the Metis and the Dream of Pembina, and its tragic final outcome with Louis Riel being hanged for treason.  But that dream is very much alive, and there are hundreds of local people, not all of them visibly Metis or Native American, who still believe in and serve this "Empire."  I've often wondered at the title, and suspected that it was added posthumously to Howard's work.  Riel's vision was neither Strange nor an Empire, but merely one of hundreds of Jesuit-inspired Republics formed to protect the land and cultures of indigenous peoples.  But further research (like reading the cover page) identified the source as Stephen Vincent Benet's "Western Star"

"That sun-dance has been blotted from the map.
Call as you will, those dancers will not come
To tear their breasts upon the bloody strap,
Mute-visaged, to the passion of a drum,
For some strange empire, nor the painted ghosts
Speak from the smoke and summon up the hosts."

After their initial defeat, Riel and many of his followers fled to Montana, where there was a large Metis community in Big Springs (Lewistown) and  Fort Benton.  Riel settled in as a teacher at St. Peter's Mission near Cascade, where he taught for a couple of years.  It was Gabriel Dumont who organized the continued resistance, and came to St. Peter's to ask Riel to rejoin them.  The history of these campaigns and the tremendous suffering inflicted on the "rebellious" French and Cree-speaking Metis is the  substance of "Strange Empire."  Following the second defeat and Riel's surrender and martyrdom, Dumont and his followers took refuge in the Teton Canyon, where their descendents still live in the Choteau area (Howard had a cabin and wrote "Strange Empire" there) as well as Lewistown ("Big Springs"), Rocky Boy's Reservation, and throughout Eastern Montana.

Joseph Kinsey Howard was employed by the Great Falls Tribune (then entirely local and independent, owned by the Warden family) in the 1930's and '40's, and probably the greatest journalist-historian-activist Montana ever produced.  I always marvel at how people like him, without even a high school diploma, and working more than full-time as Managing Editor of the Leader, the afternoon paper published by the Tribune, could still write such great books and contribute to many of the leading intellectual magazines on the East Coast, as well as organizing conferences and educational programs throughout the state.  Would that I had done the same, rather than chasing the false promise of a degree from a "leading university" like UCLA.

Like the younger Wallace Stegner, Howard was born in Canada, and moved to Great Falls as a boy.  In fact, their careers are strikingly similar, except that Stegner ended up running the Creative Writing program at Stanford, thus gaining a much wider following among writers and academic historians and other purveyors of the culture of the West. 

***********

Montana is a mythic land.  Like California, we were a creation of Romantic visionaries long before we actually became an English-speaking "state."  Indeed, one might well ask if Montana, like Oz, has ever "been civilized."  Huck Finn, as Leslie Fiedler liked to point out, was supposed to have fled to Montana after the events in Twain's book were over, and he "grew up."  He might have taken the steamboat to Fort Benton, like my great-grandfather Jim Stephens, and worked for I.G. Baker & Company, which owned the ranches on Highwood Creek which are now Katzenberger's and Harris's.  In between, the Katzenberger as well as the Halmes ranch (later John Hoyt's "Jolly Roger") were owned by an Anaconda Smelter superintendant named O'Grady. 

The original Howell Harris of the 1880's raised cattle both at Highwood and in Canada, to feed the Mounties at the newly-built Fort MacLeod, and the "Whoop-up Trail" (notorious for its illegal "trade whiskey") was also used to ship supplies to Calgary and Fort MacLeod before the railroads reached Western Canada in the same year they came to Helena - 1883.  That marked the end of the steam boat traffic, since rail was cheaper, faster, and a whole lot safer for passengers as well as freight.  

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kinsey_Howard

http://books.google.com/books/about/Strange_Empire.html?id=6pae2d_28GYC

ALEC is the cause of our "national malaise"

How ALEC subverts democracy and representative government
 
The following essay was first published on 3/3/2011 3:08 PM MST, after the last Legislative Session was over.   Maybe it will be of some use to our present Legislature.  Please forward and share widely - especially with those in Helena. 


ALEC and the Rise of the Corporate Police State

by Paul Stephens

For the past 40 years, the "law and order", "tough on crime" Drug Warriors and their corporate sponsors have hi-jacked our government.  The "War on Terror" has replaced the Cold War as an excuse to support a vast military-industrial complex which is not only killing and impoverishing millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions elsewhere, but is killing the earth, itself. 

People often wonder:  How could this have happened?  Who is behind it all?  And what do these people believe - or believe in, if anything?  Is it all just corporate group-think?  Are they being bribed or coerced to support this mass destruction of our public institutions, the environment, and our very minds and souls?  Do they understand the consequences of what they are advocating and proposing?

More to the point (since it is lawyers and legislators who are actually carrying out this agenda), do they understand that they are discrediting the Rule of Law (independent judiciary) as well as democracy and representative government, itself?   It seems unlikely.  They think they are promoting business and economic development through "Jeffersonian Federalism."  And most of them have been spoon-fed a lot of plausible lies by an organization called ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council.  


If you don't know what ALEC is, you should spend some time finding out. Here's a good place to start.  "Creating a Right-Wing Nation, State by State" by Joshua Holland

http://www.alternet.org/story/28259/creating_a_right-wing_nation,_state_by_state

Unlike, say, the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute, which have similar origins and corporate sponsorships, ALEC doesn't care about ideas or whether or not its policies and programs are valid, moral, realistic, or even legal.  They write their own laws.  That is the main function of ALEC - to rewrite state and federal law on behalf of the prison and police-state lobbies, the "resource industries", the drug cartels, the "insurance" rackets, and most of all, the military-industrial complex of Disaster Capitalism. 

How do they do this?  They organize and "train" state legislators to submit and defend "model legislation" prepared by ALEC.  These are designed to benefit corporate interests and other entrenched power-blocs - especially military contractors, telecommunications (thanks to Conrad Burns, whose Senate committee gave away $80 billion worth of the people's airwaves in the Telecommunications Act of 1996), insurance companies, large banks and brokerage houses (which are now the same thing since repeal of Glass-Stegal - a major ALEC victory), the "pharmaceutical industry", and the destroyers of the global ecosystem.  Even such unlikely "partners" as Wal-Mart and Monsanto are now major ALEC sponsors. 

At the same time, ALEC and its member-legislators are working tirelessly to discredit organized labor, environmentalists, peace and justice policies, and almost all forms of social welfare services, Social Security, Medicare, etc.  Of course, they can't come out and openly advocate this.  They do it by claiming these programs are insolvent, wasteful, corrupt, etc.  Therefore, they ought to be "privatized" so that ALEC's corporate sponsors can take a rake-off from the tax-payer's dollars. 

Did you know that JP Morgan "manages" some 36 states' Food Stamp programs?  I believe Montana is one of them.  A year or so ago, there was a story, soon buried, that Northrop Corporation (!) was suing the state because they had submitted a lower bid, but the contract was given to Morgan (or whoever it was), instead.  [Apparently, they won the suit.  Grumman-Northrop, an aerospace company, is the present holder of this contract.] The bid?  More than $30 million out of $120 million actually spent on this program.   (These are figures from 3 years or more ago - now probably much higher). 

I get food stamps (SNAP card), and it was a regular MT state employee who interviewed me and determined my eligibility.  So, what exactly does Grumman-Northrop do for its $30 million rakeoff?  Nothing but the software and perhaps contracting out the debit cards which have replaced the old paper food stamps, which cost virtually nothing to print and distribute. 

Someone pointed out that the more the states spends on SNAP, the more JP Morgan and its competitors make!  They have the incentive, now, to keep expanding the program, and apparently this is accepted as a simple "cost of doing business" with the state officials.  The more that these corporate "contractors" get out of the welfare budgets, the less is left for those who need and receive the benefits.  What a good deal for us!

Apparently, nearly all Republicans (and maybe 1/3 of the Democrats) are completely cool with this kind of "privatization" program.  In fact, the Democrats support it even more, as they have done with contracting out Medicaid and other welfare services. After all, isn't the government a kind of mafia which steals from the poor to make the rich ever richer?  The evidence is clear that it is.  And what can I, as a poor citizen legislator trying to "create jobs," do about it?  We must respect our betters, and do whatever they tell us to do, right? 

Although I haven't checked it out, I'd willing to bet that the 36 states utilizing similar "outside contractors" under similar terms have all been participating in ALEC's "model legislation" program.  Gov. Walker of Wisconsin is obviously doing something similar, too.  Notice that he didn't want to get rid of the Police and Fireman's unions (which, along with Prison Guards unions - the MEA/MFT in Montana - support ALEC), but all the other public employee's unions are to be eliminated.  That would be difficult in Montana, since public employees unions are very powerful, here.  (I have another article in the pipeline which explains why these "Marxist" unions support massive environmental assaults and degradation). 

ALEC now claims fully one-third of all state legislators as dues-paying members.  ALEC used to be free - indeed, they paid legislators with all sorts of freebies, trips, seminars, and junkets just to sign up.  But that looked suspicious.  Apparently, ALEC re-organized sometime after 2002, to conform with other "legitimate" lobbying and "political action" groups. 

Despite its claims of "bi-partisanship" and "Jeffersonian Federalism," ALEC is a creation of the Neocons.  "De-regulation," "free trade," "supply-side economics," "globalization"  (Bush Sr.'s "New World Order"), ever-more military spending, "the War on Terror," "counter-insurgency", "the War on Drugs", and above all, ever-greater concentrations of economic and political power in fewer and fewer hands. 

ALEC opposes any and all "good government" initiatives.  It does not want government programs to succeed.  It is constantly on a mission to prove the Reagan Dictum that "government is the problem, not the solution."  As our public institutions and the Rule of Law collapse under this onslaught, there is a constantly-increasing demand for "security forces", corporate health care and rehab services, prisons and secure hospitals and treatment facilities, prescription drugs, and of course ever-more production of fossil fuels and nuclear power.  We are experiencing the classic run-up to a permanent war-disaster economy, culminating in a military dictatorship.