Why we need local public radio - not NPR

The real history of KGPR

by Paul Stephens 

(This was published in my Great Falls Tribune "greateco" blog on April 19, 2012)

Every year during pledge week, we get the same group of professional liars and UM alumni to tell us that we don't really have a local public radio station - we're just a satellite of KUFM, Missoula, and thus part of "Montana Public Radio."  We can't have our own station in Great Falls because we're too stupid and apathetic.  So, send your "pledges" to Missoula.

And some of the people who actually started KGPR - especially Bruce McKenzie (who left GF in disgust decades ago) and Sidney Graham (now deceased) - were adamant that we should have an independent station, and not be under the control of "the dicatator" Terry Conrad and the Missoula Gang, who were only interested in expanding their own signal, revenues, and political influence. 

In those days, Missoula had several Marxists on its City Council, and the meetings were broadcast in their entirety on Monday evenings.  So, the first priority was to substitute "local programming" for this 2-hour slot on Monday evenings - because, obviously, the people of Great Falls weren't "ready" to hear a bunch of radicals talk about democracy and local self-rule, and besides, this was just about Missoula.  But no one here wanted to do local programming, so they played tapes of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and other canned music during that time.  (Our symphony conductor in the late 1970's, Mr. Winkler, came from there).

The honest thing to do would have been to have a local public affairs program at the same time, or perhaps broadcast the Great Falls City Commission meetings (or a tape of them from the week before) in the same slot.  But we know that democracy is not a value in Great Falls, and that our government has never been "transparent" or "accountable" to the people.

I was one of the people who wrote the original letters to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting requesting they approve a license for a LOCAL, GREAT FALLS station.  Missoula and KUFM weren't even in the loop - indeed, they couldn't be.  CPB doesn't fund, and the FCC doesn't license networks - just individual stations, and we are, and always have been, an INDEPENDENT, self-governing station, able to contract with any sources for programming. 

That was how we originally contracted with KUFM to use their signal TEMPORARILY until we could develop our own programming.  I tried twice to get on the board to carry forward this process.  The first time, Stever Doherty was selected over me.  A year or two later, John Torstveit and Carrie Calahan-Bronson (sister-in-law of the City Commissioner) and I were all selected for the Board.  We formed a "programming committee" and began broadcasting a "Local Origination Program" on Saturday afternoons - usually just tapes of recordings we made of local events - it was the era of the Great Falls and Montana Centennials, so there were lots of things to record and broadcast.

I know Arlyne Reichert is getting along in years, and her memory is failing, but much of what she said in her history of KGPR broadcast on Thursday during the Mid-day Music program is false.  (Her daughter, Claire Baize, was a graduate of the UM broadcasting program, and her family has always had close ties with Missoula. Claire, for the first time ever, has recently began doing short, humorous commentaries for KGPR, and I still count her as a personal friend).  Carrie is also a graduate of the UM J-School, and worked for Stan Stephens in his Havre station, KOJM.  So of course those "public radio activists" were not interested in a real public radio station independent of Missoula and commercial broadcasters (or the Tribune) here. 

That has been the battle all along.  Do the same people continue to control all of our "news" and civic discourse, or do we have a variety of independent sources with complete freedom to disagree and discuss the important issues of our lives? 

The answer with the KUFM-dominated KGPR is clearly "No." 

I was the first to do local broadcasts of original material in Great Falls.  I was the first to broadcast the Great Falls Symphony and chamber music programs, here.  That is all elided from the "official history" because I was twice kicked off the air - the first time for broadcasting a recording of the Easter anti-nuclear demonstrations at the Malmstrom Main Gate (at John Torstveit's insistance), and the second time for promoting the independent KGPR in 2001, when I was classical music director  (at the insistance of one of the "Golden Triangle" UM alumni, who eventually shut us down, and made us revert to a KUFM satellite station).   In neither case was there any "due process" or the right to defend myself, although I did so extensively in writing - all of which was suppressed. Arlyne and Carrie didn't even mention our two-year attempt to establish KGPR as a fully-independent local station, which they both helped to eliminated under the "leadership" of Dan Rice and some other UM Alums.

I have spent half of more of my working life for the past 30 years supporting public interest causes in Great Falls, and local public radio has been the greatest one.  You can imagine how I feel during this "pledge week" to see this whole history distorted and made to conform to the gangster politics of the local political machines. 

Thanks to Tom Halvorsen who at least has the guts to have long advocated that we broadcast Democracy Now!, and that failing, is featuring a descendent of Al Capone (Tom, like Terry Conrad, is from Chicago) as an advocate for our local station. 

I found out just a couple of years ago that Amy Goodman, the founder of Democracy Now and still anchor of it, was college room-mates at Harvard with Cindy Herbig, a Missoula cellist who dropped out and was later killed working as a prostitute in Washington, D.C.  Because of that, KUFM has steadfastly refused to broadcast Democracy Now! - an independent daily hour-long news program which is far superior to anything on NPR. 

We also get the figures every year on how much KUFM spends for NPR programming - some $280,000, or nearly half the amount raised by our pledges.  Democracy Now, the BBC, and other news programs (I'm sure we could get the CBC here, too, for little or no cost) are either free or very inexpensive.  ATC and Morning Edition are about $100,000/year by themselves, while KUFM only pays $10,000 for the much better BBC, most of which is overnight.  Many other independent news and public affairs programs are available free of charge.  So even if you want to send money to Missoula for KUFM programming, you are not getting your money's worth. 

Please support the repatriation of KGPR to the people of Great Falls, and don't send your money to Missoula, unless you want them to establish their own full-time translator here, which they have always been willing to do.

Now I'm really isolated

Now I'm really isolated

As a life-long "non-conformist" and otherwise a person who "keeps his own counsel" (although I also spend much of my time trying to determine what other people think, and why they think that), I lead a fairly isolated life.  I've found it difficult, if not impossible, to live with other people - to "partner up" in whatever sense you want to take that.  But like my friend Rik put it (a Norwegian by birth and family), "We're like blue whales.  There are just aren't enough of us left to find suitable partners, and lead meaningful lives."  Or, as we might put it now, our social networks have broken down or been co-opted. 

The cyber-community persists, of course, and in fact, we're rapidly becoming mere accessories (or "applications") for our electronic hardware.  How could this happen?  Weren't computers and the internet supposed to be a kind of "equalizer", like the Colt 45 in frontier America?  Even a little dumb guy could kill you, so you'd better be nice to him, and not try to rip him off. 

We found that computers aren't "cultural".  Or, they are "culture-neutral", a distant descendant of the "value-neutral" (Wertfrei) criterion in the social sciences.  Arabs, Chinese, Hindus, and even the most "primitive" Africans and other black aborigines are all the same when it comes to math, science, and technology.  White people, if anything, are inferior - if only because of our own self-aggrandizement and lack of ethical treatment of other nations and peoples.

Probably anyone who joined Mensa or some other exclusive club based on intelligence or ability was disappointed.  These people aren't any different than my other friends and family - except maybe they are less ethical and more conniving.  (Mensa has only one criteria - test scores.  Call it the NCLB of social networks.)  So, what's the big deal? 

For libertarians, there isn't any.  We already knew all this.  Especially if we'd read and studied Ayn Rand.  (Or many of her forebears, among whom I'll only name Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer, but there are hundreds).  We already knew that the "superior man" (as they say in the I Ching) must follow a different course from everyone else.  We might find an ally here or there; we might maintain the dignity and reputation to be a respected teacher, writer, entrepreneur, or even statesman, but we are not usually electable to public office. 

What about "the magic of everyday life" - what we might call "The Harry Potter Factor", or earlier, the bizarre supernaturalism of Stephen King?  They work very well on film, but what do we do if we're "like that" in real life?  What if we're like Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger?  Can we survive and prosper?  Can we "get respect" from anyone, or will we always be burned as witches or executed as "enemies of the people?" 

We might use sophisticated psychotherapy techniques to "re-integrate" ourselves back into "natural society."  Just act naturally - as the song says.  Pretend to be interested in all the insanity that surrounds us.  Pretend to understand.  Say that often.  "I understand."  It really reassures people.  And all the while LEAD BY EXAMPLE.   Always try to do "the right thing."  Talk about it, and why you did that.  Let people know you are no threat to them, and might just be a lot of help.  Try to be a family counselor whenever you are in a family situation.  But not pedantically.  Ask questions instead of making statements.  Teach by Socratic inquiry.  It really works. 

Suddenly, you will be admired and respected by everyone who knows you.  People will want to help you instead of kill or torture you. They will come to you for advice and consolation.  You can get laid a lot if you want to, but in this day and age, with numerous uncurable venereal diseases, you'll probably want to avoid that part of this "Sixties" thinking. 

You might even "get lucky" and find someone to "partner up" with.  But they will have all the same problems of identity and self-portrayal as you do.  They will probably have a morally checkered past, if they have lived life to the fullest.  There will be other obstacles, too - the worst of which I've found to be one's respective families.  Whether your prospective partner's family likes you or hates you, you'll be in trouble with your partner.  There are very few "well-adjusted" and mutually-supportive families, and those that are, probably won't have any rogue geniuses among them (although it depends on wider cultural values - in Sweden, this would be quite possible). 

So, "soldier on," as they say in the Nuclear Garrison Town.  We can win, but we've got to keep fighting.  And loving, and talking, and listening.  But the real victory is spiritual, not military or financial.

Political parties are crime syndicates

In the following essay, we've only touched on the role of "government schools" in our present malaise.  


Political Parties or Crime Syndicates?


All politics is local. 


by Paul Stephens


Like most people, I am surrounded by Republicans and Democrats.  They are like two grindstones, and we are the grain in between, being pulverized on a daily basis.  My mother and father were basically New Deal Democrats (my older sister, Eleanor, was born in 1941), although my father was raised as a Prohibitionist Republican, which he might have remained had he not drunk some of J.C. Peters' whiskey at about age 10.  Peters, father of the artist Les Peters (who recently passed away - he and my father were the same age), is also known for having built the Country Club Tower back in the 1950's.  My uncle Charles, a journeyman glazer, worked on that project, too.  


So what are these "parties" which are systematically dismantling our country, its economy, and even - anyone can tell you - our military, by corrupting the appropriations and procurement processes, as well as "mission creep" to where our military is everything which Americans traditionally opposed, and the greatest single threat to the future of the human species.  


Whatever "the two major parties" (hereafter referred to as "DemRepubs") are, they are not legitimate "political parties" as we have always understood them.  Even the Nazis and Bolsheviks paid lip service to all the traditional goals of political theory and action - a just and peaceful society (remember "peace through victory" - that's the German name, "Siegfried").  Unlike the DemRepubs, a serious political party must be  dedicated to better government, peace, human welfare, the Constitution, and otherwise representing the best interests of the people, as well as the global ecosystem and future generations yet to come.  The "empire" or other system must last at least 1000 years - another way of saying it must be "sustainable," "perpetual" or "steady-state."  The Catholic (and Orthodox) Christian Churches meet the test, as does Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Direct Democracy, Monarchy, etc.  Most indigenous peoples also followed this principle, as in the "7th Generation" principle of Native Americans.  Don't do anything which will harm even the 7th generation - 100 or 150 years from now. 


It would be better to call the DemRepubs "gangs" (as everyone by now must realize), if not mobs, or maybe armies - that's what they're really fighting over - control of the military because, as Trotsky said, whoever controls the military controls the Revolution and the Future.  But following my mentor, Sam Peltzman, the DemRepubs have always looked a lot more like "Crime Syndicates" to me.  (Peltzman, known originally as one of Milton Friedman's proteges at the University of Chicago, has researched and written extensively on the theory and practice of organized crime).  


Once you think of the DemRepubs this way, it all makes sense.  They're only talking to teach other.  They are rival gangs, fighting over and dividing our "territory" - now expanded to include the entire planet, with "full spectrum dominance."  They control everything.  We can only oppose them *sub rosa*, on the spiritual and intellectual planes.  We can't openly confront them on the battlefield or in the Halls of Congress, although we'd better start doing at least the latter, if we want to survive as a human species.  


They are not about to address the threats of climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, or even the financial crises which are now almost sure to result in the collapse of our government and the takeover by some explicit military or corporate dictatorship.  Fortunately, the military as a whole is better-able to coordinate rational policy solutions to any of these problems than is the Congress and the civilian bureaucracies.  When democracy fails, there will always be people there to take up the slack, and that is the best prediction for what will happen - if we don't get into a major war, first, which would simply accelerate the process, since there is no organized peace movement to stop it.  


As Gen. Smedly Butler pointed out in the 1930's, "war is a racket."  www.youtube.com/watch


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0


And the Racketeers - the Crime Syndicate bosses - are the same families and people, now, as they were, then - the Rockefellers, the Bush's, the Kennedy's, the Pews, DuPont's, Dow's, Ford's, Carnegie's, Cargill's, Guggenheim's, etc. except that they've had to enlarge "the family" considerably to take in OPEC, the Zionazis (AIPAC), the Tongs (much of California and the West Coast, along with SE Asia), the Yakuzi, and all the other ethnic gangs and power blocks known to control significant parts of the global economy.  (Every hear of the Scan-Am Mafia?  I didn't think so).  


Thanks to the prevalent anti-intellectualism and political takeovers at once-independent universities and law schools, the Criminal Law is often - surprise! - on the side of the Criminals.  Yes, I am in favor of a legal system, as well as open discussion and full transparency about its application and interpretation, but the real and enduring laws aren't made in our Legislatures of the Bribed and Coerced.  They are EVOLVED over centuries by courts and judges, which must remain wise and public-spirited, activist and independent if we are to save ourselves from tyranny.  


The "blue bloods" have become the Blue Dogs - "solid middle-class people" with a lot of friends and influence, which is usually applied surreptitiously, and for very different reasons than the advertised ones.  Call them the Junior Chamber of Commerce - the wannabe's, who will sell out in a moment to please and curry favor with the Gangster Capitalists.  They are gangs as much as any others, and because they have a lot more influence within the Military-Industrial Complex, they have a lot more say over our national direction and policies.  


Our constitutional principle of "civilian control of the military" has always been a joke, and becomes particularly acrid with a president like Barack Obama (or earlier, Bill Clinton) - always trying to be "tough guys" who "understand" what the military is supposed to want - total global hegemony and domination, in their view.  They actually believe that soldiers are sociopaths who like to fight and kill, and that is what is being selected for in our "all volunteer military" - people who will sign away their rights and their country's future in exchange for some drinking money.  As a few prescient people warned in opposition to the Vietnam-era anti-draft protests, the alternative is a mercenary army which will maximize its own wealth and control over the government and economy.  


If there was ever a reason to abandon the monopoly education bureaucracy and standardized curricula, this is it.  The Teacher's Unions are the largest single contributors to the Democratic Party.  People have to be trained and conditioned to accept the present state of things - being on the brink of military dictatorship and police state, as well as economic collapse.  People have to be lied to and confused incessantly if they are to believe what the DemRepubs are telling them.  They must more or less have "given up trying to understand anything."  And the only way this can happen is by the mechanisms of universal compulsory schooling, and through brainwashing from birth by the corporate-controlled mass media.  So long as we never hear any criticism or alternative views of things, we will think our descent into bankruptcy and dictatorship is inevitable.  


People always look to "government" to save them.  But "government" - the State, the City, the County as well as the Federal Government are, as Reagan said, "the problem, not the solution."   He was as much a captive of the corporations as Obama is - indeed, Reagan set the standard for what still exists, today.  (See Bill Moyers' recent interview with Reagan budget manager David Stockman, who is now supporting Ron Paul).  


By now, the federal government utterly dominates and controls our public education system, just as State and local gangs (the Klan, et. al.) did in the Age of Apartheid.  But we always permitted both religious schools and cooperative home and community schooling, and they are stronger, now, than ever.  Before the DOE bureaucracy ("Education Czar"), local schools were always controlled by local boards, which had to tax themselves to finance the schools.  No "free money" here!  


What a difference that one rule makes!  How much snake oil, in the form of computers and e-books would schools buy for their students if they had to pay for them with local money, without federal funding and mandates?  And how many drugs would they force their students to take if the Feds didn't spend $3000 per student per year on the CHIP program of "health insurance" - which every Democrat (and many Republicans) in the state vigorously supported?  


The old ways hang on.  We are now in the 3rd generation of "the War on Drugs," promoted and financed entirely by the "legal" drug pushers (Big Pharma) and prison industry, which is now responsible for maintaining 25% of the world's prisoners in a country - ours - with 4% of its population.  The same numbers apply to our use of fossile fuels and pollution.  And even worse numbers apply to our military spending.  We spend nearly half the world's total spent on weapons and military operations with only 4% of its population!  What's wrong with this picture?    


We can see the results nearly every week in some report of student violence, falling test scores, and skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, alcoholism, prostitution, and drug addiction - all enforced by the same laws which stamp our children's minds "Property of the State."  All but the most determined and self-reliant students end up in dead-end jobs, the military, or prison.  (Well, they still do encourage kids to be doctors and lawyers, here, but you wouldn't want to pay their fees to be treated by them, or entrust your freedom to their understanding of "the Law.")


It doesn't have to be this way.  We don't have to keep torturing and oppressing each other.  We can return to our roots, or even reassert ourselves as an independent city-state - free to create our own society in the best ways we know how.  All politics is local. 

Some family and local history - Fort Benton-Highwood-Belt

Determining one's legal status in the Cosmos


Part I   Choosing a team


The Great Falls Mafia, or the Belt, Highwood, Fort Benton Axis?


The older I get, the more I'm interested in my family's past and traditions.  I have not been able to research this stuff, myself, since I have had to practically steal or otherwise surreptitiously record whatever information I could get out of my parents and grandmother before they passed on.  My half-siblings and cousins had always ganged up on me - so much so that I started to call myself a "bastard step-child," which made a good joke since we are the Step-hens's.  


It didn't bother me when I was younger.  I always took responsibility for my own actions, and tried to mitigate whatever bad effects my relatives might have had.  There were several different factions among them, depending on whom they had married, or what their larger-world experiences might have been.  All were seemingly vying for some imaginary status and power.  I never could figure out the logic of this - we could have been one the richest and most powerful families in the world, I thought, if only we would work together and use science and reason, ethics and esthetics, to inspire and lead our efforts.  But for some reason, they never thought of me as "part of the family", or if they did, it was some dispreputable, evil part.  
  
One thing I've always known was a real handicap (besides alcoholism) was an obsession with sex and sexuality - pro, con, and otherwise - simply reducing any issue or question to those of interpersonal relations and status, rather than the merits and facts of the case.  I'm sure we're not unique in that.  Teaching high school is a real lesson in this branch of knowledge - carnal knowledge.  It seems like everything in "civilized" culture is about sex and sexual relationships, and the only ones supposedly free of that are the fundamentalist religious people who actually follow Christian principles on lust, greed, forgiveness, etc.  But even when they don't, it sets an example of a higher way of life.  We know both kinds of people, and those who are most casual and unobsessed with sex are definitely better-off, and more likely to be comfortable and happy. 

As for acquiring wealth, it just never made sense to me - especially in a revolutionary age like ours.  There are very few fortunes in this country which go back 100 years.  In Montana, they are mostly ranches (not dryland farms) with low overhead and the ability to greatly reduce their taxes through conservation easements, etc.  There are a few business and law families who go back that far.  Last Saturday's (it's a couple of months ago, now) story about the Stephenson and Cooper law firm (now Jardine, Stephenson, although they don't seem to have any Jardines, either) is a case in point.  Indeed, although no one in my family ever hired a Stephenson or Cooper lawyer, so far as I know, they were close personal friends, and Sam Stephenson even had a summer home close to our ranch in the Highwoods. 

Robert Cooper, Ransom's son, was a Bowdoin graduate (like our Founder, Paris Gibson), and I knew him fairly well as a small child.  Both my father and uncle were part of his drinking circle, exchanging books and correspondence.  We lived 35 miles from downtown Great Falls, so they probably often crashed at his place, although it was nothing to drive the 35 miles dead drunk in those days.  I still have in my library Coop's copies of the Random House Modern Library Nietzsche and F. Scott Fitgerald.  There was also an old letter from Coop at the ranch when I returned from California in 1972.  I might still have it, somewhere. I remember that it was addressed from "Somewhere in the space-time contiuum," and so I had a few conversations with my father and uncle about him.  They both thought he was a genius - one of the most literate and philosophical people they'd ever known.  Upon receiving his inheritance, he drank himself to death within a few years. 

I also knew that his father, Ransom was the chief attorney for the Anaconda Company, but I assumed it was just local business involving claims against the Smelter by workers, etc.  There was probably a lot of that, but people from this firm, if we can trust Ecke's account, actually went on to head the ACM - one of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average "Blue Chip" companies, in those days.  (Like Kodak, one might point out, which is about to be de-listed altogether from the NYSE).  


Baucus's and Swanberg's were also big-time lawyers, here.  I guess I understand, now, why Max had no scruples about "Panama Paul-ing" Judge Hatfield when he ran against him in the 1978 Democratic Senate primary.  If only Baucus were "the real McCoy" instead of just another crypto-Republican elitist pandering to the "liberals" while the rich people pretend he's their mortal enemy.    


The Swanberg's and A.B. Guthrie, Jr. were also part of that group.  I can still remember, although I must have been only 6 or 7 years old, sitting in Gus and Eddie's (where That Bar is now, but with a beautifl curved bar, neon purple lighting, and faux-leopard skin upholstered booths) with my father, Coop, and A.B. Guthrie, Jr.  That was their main hang-out, I think, along with the Pennant, where all the Tribune reporters and printers hung out.  


My mother, who had grown up in Al Capone's Chicago, was considered a usurper - in spite of being Jean Arthur's cousin, and the grand-daughter of one of the earliest founders of Billings.  When her father, Arthur Nelson, died, Alex Blewett represented her half-brother, Skip, in the battle over the estate.  And Bill Swanberg represented my father in their custody dispute over me.  She won that one, but they always made it clear that I could mix and match however I liked.  Of course I chose the drinking and gambling life of my father - as well as the intellectual aspects of being a teacher and writer.  Somehow, that seems to have precluded me from inheriting the ranch, even though I am the sole surviving Stephens. 

My mother's maternal grandfather, too, was an old hand in Great Falls, John Dunn, having moved here to work at the Smelter, if I remember right, in 1906.  Both of my grandmothers went to high school at what is now Paris Gibson Square, with my grandmother Stephens (Paulson, changed from the Norwegian Sitje) being Salutatorian in the class of 1908.  I think there were 19 graduates, most of them girls, in that year.  You could test for a teaching certificate, and teach in a country school with no college, in those days - grades 1-8, at least.  She also took the Civil Service Test (I still have the results of that), and was first in line for any job that opened (mostly Post Office, then - there was no FBI, Social Security, or other Federal regulatory or welfare agencies).  But she married my grandfather, instead, who was literate and public-spirited, and they made a good match, even though he was 24 years older (not unusual in those days, when many men outlived several wives).  I spent my first 6 years in their home, with my father and uncle more or less serving as co-parents - sort of like "Two and a Half Men," some have noted.


Two years after my grandparent's marriage in 1912, the Great War broke out, and the Lutheran Scandinavians and Germans, as well as the German and Eastern European Jews, were considered suspicious aliens, and actually tried and prosecuted, as well as being punished in many other ways just for opposing or even questioning the war, avoiding the draft, or even possessing German language papers and books.  It was very much like today's situation with Muslims.  They're even reviving "Sedition Laws" passed in 1917 to deal with this supposed "Fifth Column" of "peace activists."


Into my generation, we were still raised as Lutherans, although several of my cousins went to the Methodist Church (my grandfather was a friend of Brother Van, and a sincere Christian), but most of their kids don't go to anything at all, or perhaps some fundamentalist "Christian Right" sect.  Both my father and I joined the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, and since we were fans of Emerson and Thoreau, we fit right into that.  I'll have to write a history of what I remember of that, some day.  Mary Scriver was the circuit-Pastor during that time, and will no doubt leave a thorough account of it from her perspective.  Grace Fishbaugh, Arlyn's mother, was one of the mainstays, along with Dr. Ernst Eichwald and some other doctors and lawyers, including the Best's, who were just getting started in their law practice, then.  Elizabeth's grandfather, Dr. McPhail, an obstetrician, brought me and a thousand or more others into this world.  


Paris Gibson was a Universalist (meaning Universal Salvation - an obscure Christian sect which intrpreted Divine Grace rather more broadly than most).  The Unitarians and Universalists merged in the early 1950's.  


The Belt-Highwood-Fort Benton Axis is the other "affinity group" for the Stephens family.  Upper Highwood, early in the last century, was something like Big Sky is today - an elite collection of trophy ranches, rich doctors and lawyers, and of course the earliest city in Montana, Fort Benton, as well as the Coal Boom towns of Belt and Sand Coulee.  It may seem quaint and picturesque, today, but these guys ruled the world.  There were something like 10 Fleet Admirals and Generals from that "zone" in Choteau County from the First World War through Vietnam.  And famous war heroes, intellectuals, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc., etc.  Don't make me list them - Ken Robison is putting together a pretty good account of it, and there are many others to choose from.


My grandfather Stephens was born during the Civil War - 1864, in Illinois.  His father voted for Abraham Lincoln.  I've recently determined that he was also a fairly close cousin of the VP of the Confederacy, Alexander Hamilton Stephens.   Of course, that Stephens (the leading advocate for chattel slavery) and Abraham Lincoln also knew each other from serving together in Congress.  I suspect my grandfather spent his whole life trying to figure out the massive tragedy of the Civil War.  He was the least combatitive person imaginable.  Like Will Rogers, he "never met a man he didn't like", and according to my father, never made moral judgments about people - even those who were demonstrably evil.  What a gift!    


But his wife, my Norwegian grandmother, grew up mostly fatherless, in working-class boarding houses which her peasant mother ran, speaking Norwegian as a child, and suffering all the perils of alcoholism, sexism, and violent exploitation which characterized life in frontier Great Falls.  She never imagined herself free of control by the indefinable "they" - some "authorities" who secretly control everything.  She was very judgmental, puritanical, and a political Prohibitionist, like most of the "respectable" church-going women of that time.  So, it's no wonder we all turned out so strangely, I suppose.  

Revisiting Mr Smith Goes To Washington + Library

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reconsidered

It's hard to say how many times I've watched the film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12, I should think.  I taped it off of cable (WTBS - the Turner network home station) in the 1980's - it doesn't even have commercials, which means it was before Turner Classic Movies was established.  And it's not one of those pristine prints remade from the negatives.  It has scratches and pops, but not many.

Jean Arthur, who happened to be my mother's cousin, and one that I actually met and spent some time with in 1956, was a Turner favorite, and the director, Frank Capra, is considered one of the greatest.

In this film, Jean plays a good person - which she didn't always do.  She was really more of a comedienne than a serious, dramatic actress, and she moved in the most radical Hollywood circles.  After the anti-Communist Witch Hunts (which Sen. McCarthy and friends were smart enough not to include her among), Capra renounced most of his populist, radical beliefs - even claiming that he had never supported the positions dramatized in his films of the 1930's and '40's.  Jean never went that far, but after her last film, Shane, she more or less retired into oblivion, and never appeared in another feature film.

Since we're now in a very similar political and economic situation as that of the later 1930's, this film should be shown more frequently and widely.  The role of the press (now the media, but they had radio then) and the corrupt political machines has hardly changed at all.  Jimmy Stewart, who plays Jefferson Smith, is a proto-type Green - an environmentalist, and advocate of traditional self-help and rural values - especially harmony with nature and natural processes.  It is his first trip to Washington, D.C., and he is astonished to find that all he was taught or read about American government and national purpose and values no longer applies - indeed, he is practically laughed out of town for trying to be a real Senator who is not the puppet of special interests.

Whenever I stopped the tape, I had my TV tuned to PBS, and was able to segue right into The McLaughlin Group or Washington Week in Review.  Pretty scary.  McLaughlin and his gang, especially, seemed to be exact counterparts of the "Washington Insiders" of the 1930's portrayed in Mr. Smith.

I made my trip to Washington, D.C. in 1978.  This was just after Max Baucus's first Senate campaign, which he won.  I was very much opposed to Baucus and his pseudo-liberal campaign, while pandering to right-wing isolationists who opposed the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, which was was actually the Carter Administration's position (backed by the banksters whose only hope of collecting on Panama's debt was to give them the revenues from the canal).  I knew some high-ranking Democrats in Washington, and asked them about Baucus.  They assured me that he was OK.  But he sure wasn't Mr. Smith.

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

I've wanted to revisit my "campaign" against the Great Falls Public Library and its weeding and other policies for a long time.  Here's a beginning.  I recently located my extensive files and correspondence about this from the early 1990's.  I shall publish some of that as required to restore the library to its former status as the centerpiece of our intellectual life - independent from the politics of the local school system and city government.

5 Demands for the Great Falls Public Library

1.  Define the GFPL as the central intellectual and cultural institution of our city.

2.  Form a committee of local intellectual and cultural leaders to set policy, hire staff, and otherwise organize and direct the library collections and policies.  [No, it don't mean the self-selected "Board" and "Foundation" which only answers to the City Commission mafia and D.A. Davidson and the Republican Party].

3.  Immediately halt the giveaway and sale of library books and other materials.  Reclaim or re-purchase all significant books which have been discarded over the past 25 years, at $1/copy.  The oversight committee can determine which are "significant" and need to be replaced in the library's collection.  [I have attempted several times to restore such books to the Library's shelves, and have been met with nothing but derision and contempt from Library staff.  They refuse to admit they ever made a mistake, or acted out of censorous motives.  And I have protested, in writing, many other times over particular books found on their "dollar shelf" - not one of which was ever answered except by a form letter.]

4.  Fire all those employees who were hired by Jim Heckel, and re-evaluate the Director's position, job description, etc., as well as other professional (MLS) staff.  In my many conversations with these people, I have yet to hear anything which resembles an understanding of what a public library is for, and what services it is supposed to provide - let alone the constitutional issues of freedom of information and local control of vital institutions.

5.  Expand hours of service from 8 am to midnight, 7 days per week. 

What to do when democracy fails - autobiographical

What to do when democracy fails
by Paul Stephens

It's time to admit it.  Democracy in America has failed.  We no longer have any of the elements of a free society.  We no longer have self-government.  We no longer have the Rule of Law, or independent judiciary.  We no longer have civilian control of the military.  We no longer have a free press, or the opportunity to organize politically in order to change our system and "leadership class," such as it is.

And worst of all, every trend is towards more centralization, more polarization, more wealth and power for the elite 1%, and less for everyone else.  It's like slavery has become respectable, again.

This didn't just happen in the last week, or over the past 10, 20, or 30 years.  All the elements were in place 40 years ago, or even 80 years ago, or 160 years ago.  1846, "the Year of Decision," as Bernard DeVoto called it, marked the beginning of "the American Empire."  And we can even go back to 1802, when President Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers and author of several key state documents and institutions, was negotiating to pay $15 million in gold to Napoleon, to support his wars of conquest against Britain and Russia, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, and even Egypt - roughly the same agenda which Adolf Hitler would follow in the Second World War, except that Napoleon emancipated the Jews, while Hitler liquidated them as a destructive, alien element.

Just think about that for a minute.  The fledgling US Republic, dirt-poor and with very little government or taxes at all, scraped together the equivalent of a year's operating expenses - much of it borrowed from Dutch-Jewish bankers - to pay Napoleon for a "territory" which he didn't in any sense own.  It was pure "foreign aid", and to a dictator the likes of whom the world had never seen since the height of the Roman Empire.  In effect, we, the people of the United States, right then and there, threw in our lot with the heir to the French Revolution (a revolution which President Jefferson admired, and to some extent even helped to foment).

So, we can go back that far to find the roots of our current situation.  Basically, it has ALWAYS been this way in The United States of America.  We have been fighting world wars since the early 1800's, and our very existence as a nation depended upon French, Dutch, and other foreign nations which helped us gain our so-called "independence" from the Britsh Crown.

We learned all this in elementary and middle school, right?  Well, we learned most of the "facts" (or some of us did - I was an avid reader of history and biography from the 4th grade on - because we had a library and schools which encouraged such reading, which no longer exist).  And coming from a literate family which also read history, and had history books at home, it was easy for me to do this - even while our family was dysfunctional with alcohol, drugs, divorce, sex and gender issues, as well as poverty and lack of any middle-class income.

When I got to high school, I was testing at the top 1% (which I had actually been doing since the 2nd grade, I later found out), and began to discover others in my "intellectual class" - the children of doctors, lawyers, large land-owners, engineers, and business people - and I was able to "integrate" myself with them - even while I was considered to be something of a charity case and odd-ball.

It was my 2nd generation Norwegian grandparents who saved me from a life of ignorance and destruction, by  more or less bribing me to take music lessons and be confirmed in the Lutheran Church.  Even though I was by that time an atheist, and never attended a Lutheran service for another 12 years, I was "confirmed."  I had some identity which I could claim, when everything else went wrong.

People tend to live and think in herds.  I didn't.  I could never understand how people simply went along with whatever their friends and families were doing.  No one seemed to question anything, and if they did, they were punished for it.  In college and afterwards, I joined a few organizations and tried to find some sort of "peer group" or people who followed some of the same ideas and politics which I did.  None of them lasted very long until I took psychedelics, dropped out of graduate school, and began to re-learn everything I had ever known and believed through different "filters" and pre-conceptions.  I found that there were different religions, philosophies, and traditions which seemed to fit much better than WASP Judeo-Christianity and the "linear thinking" behind secular American culture and its commercialized economy and lifestyles.

Growing up in Montana, I only knew white people - those of European descent, plus a few Metis - mixed blood Native Americans.  My aunt had married a Jewish man, so I had a half-Jewish cousin, who never really identified with those traditions - partly because Jewish belonging is matriarchal, and her mother wasn't Jewish.  I probably knew a few people with some African-American descent - even a few with Arabic or other Islamic and Asian backgrounds.  I remember one Chinese family, the Wongs, who still live here, and a Japanese exchange student, but I never had a conversation with any of them in high school (or with the many black people who lived here, then).  Among those I knew, none of them defined themselves as being "people of color" or otherwise "different" - it was bad for one's job and marriage prospects, among other things.  Everyone I knew, in those days, was trying to "pass for white" as they said in the South, and in fact, Great Falls was racially segregated up to about 1970, as the history of the Ozark Club has revealed.

And so, I went off to college as something of a confirmed racist - even though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time.  I agreed with Goldwater entirely, opposing federal laws which forced the "integration" of private facilities, although I understood that the government on whatever level couldn't discriminate.  But I had nothing against black people, and when I got to college, I began to have conversations with them - very strained, at first, I must admit.  It wasn't until I was in a French class with African Americans, and who were much better at learning a language than I was, that I began to understand who my friends should have been, and that race had nothing to do with status among the intellectual or cultural elites I hoped to join.

So, whatever happened to Democracy in America?  We will continue to explore that question in future installments.

 

10 best concepts popularized by Ayn Rand

The Christian Science Monitor (of all places) recently posted a set of 10 Favorite Quotations from Ayn Rand.  I thought it was pretty lame, so I decided to do my own - not with quotations, but with the actual concepts she popularized and espoused.

10 best concepts from Ayn Rand and the Objectivists (a rock 'n roll band)

1.  Social Metaphysics  -  Originally "distilled" or named by Nathaniel Branden, who was developing Objectivist Psychology at the time, "social metaphysics" describes the mechanism by which people are forced into obedience and conformity.  The whole process of "bonding" and creating "affinity groups" (gangs) requires that each person give up his or her own view of reality, and conform to the social unit.  In other words, one's metaphysical view of one's place in the world is totally social, not individual or free.  Which leads us to

2 &3. Individualism -  Rand was the leading individualist philosopher of her day.  And this is both "ethical individualism" and "methodological individualism".  The former refers to her politics totally dominated by "individual rights" and their protection.   Rand believes (and claims Thomas Jefferson as a fellow-believer on this) that "in order to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."  Wasn't that in the Declaration of Independence?  Yes,  But Rand and her "school" of libertarians believe exactly that, while most other political philosophers and practitioners apparently do not, believing instead that "might makes right" or some sort of "divine right of ......." - whether church or state officials, law, taxes, etc.
"Methodological Individualism" simply means that the individual is the "unit" for all social analysis and policies.  The whole may be more than the sum of its parts, but it is the parts which are acting, sentient beings.  Each individual is "sovereign", and has purposes, values, etc. of its own, which must be recognized and protected.

4.  The Stolen Concept - This is a simple paraphrase of one of the rules of logic - like "begging the question" (petitio princippi).  You arrive at conclusions which rely on some concept which you have already denied.  She gives lots of examples of this, usually with a rightist bias.  Like, "you can't have "socialized medicine" because that would be enslaving the doctors.  With enslaved doctors, you don't have any good medicine at all."  But it works equally well from the left.  You learn the tools, and then apply them to your own projects or positions. And of course the real student will then study logic, to see if what Rand was saying is correct, and verified "in the literature" or whatever.  Usually, they'd either find that it wasn't, or that there were already better explanations of the process or phenomenon in question.

5.  Cigarettes are a symbol of freedom and liberation.  So, Rand was a drug freak after all.  Didn't we just know it?  And everyone has the right to enjoy their guilty pleasures, whether sexual, pharmaceutical, alcoholic, etc. - "so long as it doesn't harm others."  But of course all of these things harm others!  So much for Ayn Rand!

6.  Escape clauses - the above is an example of that.   Ayn Rand isn't for everybody.  In fact, it's for almost nobody - the 1%, the Mensans, the nerds and geeks, the sexually confused and dispossessed.  Boys with Oedipus Complexes, and refugees from tyrannical religious sects and doctrines.  It's the traditional proto-revolutionary class, or at least that's what attracted me to it.  And I never feared that I could get back out if need be.  I chose to be there, and I could chose to leave.  I knew a hundred different perspectives on the Phenomenon of Ayn Rand, and being afraid wasn't any part of them.

7.  Pride, self-esteem.  This seems like such a cliche, now, but outside of Hollywood, these were not values prominently displayed in American society prior to Ayn Rand's influence in the 1940's with The Fountainhead.  In that novel (which really was revolutionary at the time), Rand explained the various social types who are destroying our world, our souls, and our very existence as a nation and people.  There wasn't any glorification of "capitalists" and bankers/industrialists there.  They were all SOB's, while it was journalists, independent business people (entrepreneurs), and artists/musicians who were really important, and had "souls."

8.  Ennoblement -  Tim Leary used this term, I think.  American society was "ennobled" by the youth culture of the 1960's, and the Objectivist movement was a big part of it, as was Scientology.  It was seen, world-wide, as another Renaissance, and Objectivism was a Renaissance philosophy and movement.

9.  The literature of music.  Ayn Rand understood the importance of symphonic music to the educational and social process as well or better than anyone.  You simply can't have an advanced society without a large number of people listening to and finding meaning in this essential cultural framework.  Every advanced culture has it, and values it.

10.  Romanticism  -  Those of us with an inherent interest in film, TV, drama, music, or the other arts were fascinated by Rand's defense of what she called "Romanticism."  Not quite the same as the historical movement which started in Germany and France during and after the Revolution, but she had good taste, and read all those people critically.  It's worth mentioning that Rand was also a Wagnerite, like many other Northern European Jews, and also much closer to Lutheranism than Catholicism insofar as cultural aspects were concerned.  (Like Trotsky, who was educated in a German-language Lutheran gymnasium!).

The 19th century Romantics, on the other hand, were more - well, "Roman."