2011 probably wasn't the best year for most folks, though there was considerable improvement for many. Politically speaking, it's been one of the most polarizing years I can think of. Here's hoping for a better 2012.
We can make that happen. Many individuals, smart and otherwise, have argued loud and long that America has a two-party problem. We have a center right party and a far right party. I'm not going to argue that; I never would or have. Here's the thing, though. Our challenge, which should be clear, remains muddied. How do we get a left party in control of our governance?
If 2010, an awful year, is any indication, then the path would be to kill off the center right party. How'd that work out? Not well, obviously. Since handing the US House back to the Republicans, the 99%ers have been held hostage at least 5 times. I'm certainly glad we got rid of those Blue-Dog Dems in favor of truly partisan tea-baggers. After all, partisanship is the problem and getting rid of partisans for more strongly partisan folks is surely the answer.
Or not. How about this? If the country has moved to the right because we have a center-right party and a far-right party, maybe the solution in defending the left isn't to attack the anchor in the middle. Just saying ... Maybe, just maybe, if we destroy the far right, utterly obliterate them, then maybe we might have vision left to support the left. Just maybe. It's easy to see that destroying the far right would leave us with a center right party in control, and doesn't that suck. Maybe it does, except ...
You've all taken high school math, right? If you want a function to move in a desired direction, you don't remove a moderating variable. You remove the extremes. It is that simple. Remove the far right and you have a median that resembles more the country in representation. The center right party already contains those who are of the left. Destroy the far right, and you can't help but have a policy forwarded that better favors the middle and lower classes. More to the point, you have a starting position for moving policy and politics towards the left. This isn't that goddamned difficult. Remove people like Skees, Burnett and Rehberg and you are left with people who are more pliant to your needs. Start from the center right, and you're one helluva lot closer to where you want to go than giving the game away to the far right, as we liberals did in 2010.
Here's to a happy New Year, one in which liberals finally decide to fight back rather than let the right take our apathy as acquiescence.
Having just returned from Washington DC and a meeting with Dennis Rehberg, the blogger and twitterer ILIKEWOODS reports this to a post from Don Pogreba:
You all want to hear this! I went to DC last week and I and my 8 other friends found out that Rehberg doesn't plan on dumping that border bill! He told us in about a half an hour interview that he thinks we still need this bill!
His reasons are as follows:
1. I asked him if he could site the last time we had a gun Runner caught smuggling guns into the border? He told me that I didn't know it but smuggling guns and an Illegal sex slave business was thriving in and around Glacier Park! That there were tons of reports on this very thing!
2. Even though I used to work for the BLM and I was the first person in the nation to write the fire fighting agreement for the BLM and Forest Service 30 years ago.... that their were no convenance acts between the agencies, even though I knew they have been in place for criminals and other such matters, for about the same amount of time as the my fire act was! And that the borders between us and Canada are not to be trusted!
3. That Canada is a hotbed for terrorist activities were arab badmen could come poring through the border at any second, and giving the top hundred miles to Home security, would only further jobs in the state by companies that didn't need to follow those pesky EPA rules any longer!
The man also tried to tell us he never utter that Pell grants were welfare for students, and that he wrote a Jobs bill recently.... but he couldn't remember the particulars of the bill and neither could his Communications director... but he knew it would bring Montana out of the Hole!
The man is a complete nut, and truth couldn't be found passing his lips that day! Any one who allows this man to become one of this states next senators is a nut case themselves and no friend of MONTANA
Over the next several days Media Matters For America (MMFA) will be posting a 4 part series of articles highlighting the growing right wing extremism in Montana's Northwest corner. The series is penned by David Holthouse. Part 1 is titled Homeland On The Range. It focuses on April Gaede's group Pioneer Little Europe, and its growing ties to the nativist anti-government "Patriot" movement.
Part 2 is titled Pioneering Hate, and focuses on the PLE group and their beliefs.
Many Montana bloggers and activists have been sounding the call about these groups and their growing influence in the Flathead and Bitterroot areas for some time now. I'm one of them. The Montana Human Rights Network has been taking lead on this and they have a deep cause for concern. So it's actually nice to see a more national forum in which these topics are discussed. These extremists have more than gained a foothold in Montana. I shouldn't need to remind readers here that the only state level politician from the (Christian) Constitutional Party to have ever been elected in the entirety of the US was Rick Jore, elected to the state legislature from Ronan. But now, 'Republicans' like Derek Skees are carrying the banner of the Patriot movement and supporting the goals of groups like Pioneer Little Europe.
On a related note, Montana Cowgirl today casts the spotlight on the Governors race, where Chuck Baldwin has joined as the (Christian) Constitutional Party's candidate for Lieutenant Governor. It's well worth the read.
UPDATE: I've added links to part three and part four.
Part three is titled Armed and Dangerous. It chronicles the violence inherant in the white supremicist movement and it's ties to the Patriot movement.
Part four is titled Patriot Games, focusing on the political ambitions of the Patriot movement and specifically on Chuck Baldwin.
I suggest to y'all that political discussion on the Montana online is not at all like chess, or basketball, or baseball or even golf. It is more like Parcheesi. And voting is the dice throw.
As of today, Montana Secretary of State Linda McColluch's office has certified Initiative Referendum number 124 for the November 2011 ballot. The signatures have been gathered (well more than needed) and Montana has the opportunity to tell our state legislature not to go about thwarting the will of the people, a will we've already voted on.
To all activists and partisans, i urge you to read the text of the IR carefully, and frame it in the manner I have here. Those who would support the loathsome SB 423 will attempt to frame this as a vote on whether we still favor unbridled use of marijuana. That isn't what IR-124 is about. It's about whether we support the legislature in repealing a good initiative, voted on by all Montanans, in favor of a weak attempt to control what the state favors. IR-124 is not about whether Montana favors the use of medical marijuana. That was decided when the voters approved I-148. This Referendum is specifically about spanking SB 423, or supporting it. Ballot language in full, below the fold:
Montana's Congressman has a John Boehner problem -- two members of his Republican majority on the subcommittee he chairs think his budget is too big, presumably because it doesn't condemn all orphans to starvation or something. This presumably explains why Dennis has repeatedly cancelled his bill's markup. He doesn't have the votes to get something passed.
In other words, Congressman Rehberg hasn't been doing his job because he didn't do his job (assembling the votes needed to pass the budget).
But here's the other likely explanation: in a Republican Congress where everyone is scared of the Tea Party, Rehberg is keeping his profile low on a fight between the establishment and the Tea Party. The last thing he needs right now is a Tea Party challenger in his primary for bucking the Paul Ryan kill-Medicare budget. But he also can't tow the Paul Ryan kill-Medicare budget line without sinking his chances in the general.
So far--this gambit has largely avoided media coverage. We'll see if that changes in the near future.
"If you're only talking to people you agree with, politics will always disappoint you."
At work, at home, at any point, I am a process guy. Matt Singer and those devoted to voter rights are process folk. That is what it is all about. That is what Obama is devoted to.
Huge hat tip to the most excellent RumpRoast Blog. Here's what we're facing, my friends. We can have political discussions high brow, low brow or no brow. We can focus on candidates or issues or attempt to do both. But ultimately the nemesis to whatever we desire is captured right here in video.
Notice please, this guy isn't an idiot. He's probably very intelligent, just drunk off his ass. I guarantee you, however, that he believed the same BS about the Constitution and Ron Paul upon waking in the new Gallatin County Detention Center that he was hurling at the deputies that night. This guy represents a bunch of folk who have a belly-full of self-interest. They don't care about the issues that the emo-progs so focus on. They don't have any respect for the law that prag-progs such as myself hold dear. They believe in self-interest first and only. They often have money and they vote. This is the portrait of the enemy, folks. 2012 will not be an election about Ron Paul. It will be an election carried by those who think themselves better than you, if you don't see them as the threat that they are.
