Bah!! Back to the Blog and fighting for our rights.

by: Doug Coffin

Fri Feb 18, 2011 at 22:42:22 PM MST

As result of their lost rights to organize and bargain collectively, private sector employees have seen dwindling wages, pensions and health care benefits while their workweek increases to about 48 hours per week. Public employees, because they're still organized, still have some reasonable benefits left. The coporatocracy and their minions, like Governor Walker (R-WI) are out to drive a wedge between public and private employees and then drill a stake through the last vestige of those who stand for employee rights in America.

What is at stake? Historically, organized labor is responsible for:
- The forty hour work-week.
- Abolition of child labor.
- Paid vacations.
- The minimum wage.
- Women's and civil rights/ anti-discrimination.
- Worker's compensation.
...and much more. Why was Martin Luther King in Memphis, TN in 1968? He was supporting sanitation workers who were on strike when when a right-wing extremist shot him to death. He was standing up for worker's rights and the right to collective bargaining. The very rights that Gov. Walker is trying to take away. Bottom line: Civil rights, labor rights and education are joined at the hip. Martin knew that fundamental truth, and you should too.

If the corporatocracy has their way, you will lose those rights forever. They will ban the right for workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employer for decent wages and working conditions. Discrimination, poor wages, longer work weeks, vacations, health care benefits and more are all at hand when the right to organize disappears.

Who is the corporatocracy? They are the CEOs and Wall Street financiers who are reaping billions in profits while denying the little people their few. They are the billionaires who buy off our politicians so that hey can get tax cuts, and then convince the ignorant that government deficits result from too much spending. They insist that we have to cut social security, medicaid, WIC and other social support programs to pay for the tax cuts. That's exactly what's happening in WI and in WDC. The deficit comes not from too much spending, but from too many tax cuts for the corporatocracy.

Example: Bill Gates is the hidden face of the corporatocracy. His Gates Foundation funds the
National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) that masquerades as pro-education. But they are partners with the extreme union-busting Center for Union Facts with their "Labor Pains" web site. They are hot to abolish teachers unions, and if they nail the other public employee unions along the way, so be it.

Bottom line: The farther we go down the path to Kafka's Amerika the more we will pay in blood to reverse directions.

We'll be in Helena on Monday (Feb 21st) to fight for our rights. We hope to see you there.

America vs America: Who wins?

by: Doug Coffin

Sun Jan 02, 2011 at 13:08:20 PM MST

What we're really seeing is an animalistic, epic battle for resources that all societies face when scarcity comes, and come it will in cyclical economies. A NY Times front page story http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01... is prototypical in what we should expect to see in 2011. It pits the "public employee" against the "working American" and ponders the resolution.

The Garden State (NJ) is accurately portrayed as the most severe example of the problems facing state governments across the country. The NYT article is well written, but it is written for the business reader and published in the Business section which begs a question. Does any newspaper have a "Labor" section? Naturally, the unions don't come off well in the story, nor do public employees or teachers. The reader's comments smoke the author out pretty well on these items.

The lead NYT editorial then discusses the unfelt economic recovery and how cuts on the state and local level will mitigate any real economic growth and/or reduction in unemlpoyment in 2011. True, bad news for Obama and bad news for America.

Montana's Lee newspapers are running a parallel piece by Charles Johnson that frames the debate in the upcoming legislature.  The Helena Independent posted op-eds by MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver and GOP State Senator Ryan Zinke, both very decent people with the best interest of Montanans at heart. Those op-eds, while not diemetrically opposed, do represent different interests. "Smaller government" with a "structurally balanced budget" i.e. a much smaller budget across the board, cannot be consistent with the perceived necessary provision of government services to sustain our health, welfare and economy in the 21st century. Something has to give. So Montana is, indeed, a microcosm of the nation. Published salutes to Jim Peterson and Mike Milburn are also prominent in today's papers along with editorials hoping for collective, sound solutions. Wouldn't we all love that; optimism abounds at the beginning of the legislative session.

In framing the America vs America conflict, let's first consider the "public employee", painted as the poster-child of big-bad government by business and anti-labor interests. The fact is, as pointed out by Feaver and many in the the NY Times reader's comments, that most public employees are hard working middle class Americans. They live right next door, they pay the same taxes and have the same real-life problems as private sector employees. The agenda and rhetoric of anti-government, anti-labor conservative corporocrats provides the proof: Public employees are unionized by necessity as a means to defend themselves and protect their interests. From my "professional left" (and proud of it) perspective, the right to organize as a workforce is fundamental, and public employees are no exception. Of course, my corporocrat counterparts would disagree.

Now let's consider the private sector employee. Concomitant with their loss of labor-organization and collective representation, they have suffered declining wages and benefits for the last thirty years. This is largely the upshot of Reagan's 1980's new conservatism where the CEO is king, stock prices are THE barometer for success in business, and employees are chattel. The losses for defenseless private sector employees, as compared to the unionized public sector, have set the stage for the current middle class cannibalism that is a large part of America vs America.

Reagan's policies gutted labor law enforcement in favor of the Gilded Age ideology, but the anti-labor public relations victory from his bully pulpit did much more to lower the status of unions in the public eye. Unlike public employees, private sector employees largely lost the right to organize and collectively represent their interests. Make no mistake, poor leadership and corruption in organized labor have played right into the conservative game plan all along. But I would submit that pendulum is starting to swing back as Americans recognize the necessity for collective representation in the workplace and modern union leadership is vastly improved over the Hoffaesque versions of the past. The major challenge for modern labor leaders is to avoid the past affliction of promoting their union over the necessity of representing the best interests of their member-employees. Political bargains made by union leaders are often too compromising on that front.

So, the sectorized split of the American middle class among public and private sector employees, or unionized versus non-union employees, is a large part of today's America vs America battle. The other main component is provided by income disparity. Reagan and now Obama both make no apology for unfettered attainment of wealth, be it legitimate or otherwise. Witness the latest financial crash and TARP bailout. There is no doubt that the losses of the middle class have directly translated into gains for Reagan billionaires. This Ayn Rand ideology most certainly proves true in the New Gilded Age transfer of wealth between classes. So it should be according to our new conservatives and corporocrats.

Therein lies the class warfare, income disparity version of America vs Amercia. It recently played out in the federal lame duck session whereby conservatives and Obama cleverly linked unemployment benefits to tax cuts for the wealthy. That link had no legitimacy except to provide a false debate of one versus the other. New-Gilted-Age corporocrats, Republican and Democratic alike, got their uppper-income tax breaks while the perception of Obama's protecting the poor and unemployed played to gullible liberals (....er...excuse me "progressives").

The next act in that play comes this spring where "cutting the deficit" means open season on government benefits for poor and middle class Americans. Look for Obama and congressional leaders repeat the strategy of the lame duck session, were "compromise" nets out to more for the business class at the expense of the populace. And so the beat of modern corporatocracy goes on, further dividing America by income and class.

The bottom line here is that Americans cannot expect a government that is overwhelmingly influenced by the business class to fairly represent their interests as employees. They simply have to do that themselves. The first step is to deny any legitimacy to the notion that public employees are substantially different than those in private sector. Indeed, the private sector workforce needs to emulate the public sector by both defending and utilizing their right to organize and provide collective representation.

Moreover, I would submit that, done correctly, an organized workforce is a net positive for business and economic growth. Striking a proper balance of power in the workplace provides accountability for management, shared goals and ownership and ultimately a fairer means to spread the resulting economic benefits between economic strata. Once again the overriding principle applies that only education-training and organized collective representation in the workplace can protect wages and income for employees.

However, too narrow a focus on Montana and even the United States leads us to forget that we live in a global economy. The competing interests are not limited to our shores vis the flat, smaller world as the niche for resource competition. Global oil consumption is the best example. American consumption has actually declined in the last two years, but our domestic prices are rising because emerging nation (China and India) consumption has risen. America vs America does not serve us well if we're to compete in the global arena.

Ultimately the 21st century economy with its New Gilted Age onset represents our greatest challenge. America's test is to manage our intranational competition so that we can prevail in the international arena. That starts to play out in our 2011 legislature beginning this week. Will something emerge from the postulates of Zinke and Feaver that will ultimately prevail over the Dave Lewis agenda? Are the promises of the GOP leadership, namely Sen. Peterson and Rep. Milburn, valid in constructively working with Governor Schweitzer and even the minority Democrats? If so then we might expect that the session will result in sound, collective solutions from the 2011 session.  

Results on the national level are a quantum step up from Montana. Will the populist Obama that we elected prevail over Obama the corporocrat who is now governing? Will sound, collective decisions from the federal government allow America to regain a balance between labor and management and between economic strata, that is so critical to the future of our nation? Conventional wisdom states that a stable, prosperous middle class is the base alloy of our democracy. Achieving that economic goal intranationally is the only means to competing internationally in both economic and social terms. Finding the line between healthy internal debate and a disparate ravaging for resources between sectors seems difficult.  

Those questions, on the local, national and international levels define 2011 and the ongoing 21st century. The competition for resources tests our individual and collective ability to reason verus our animal nature to compete. Perhaps the first federalist paper states it best: "Whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind."

The author of that paper, Alexander Hamilton, and the other founding fathers saw that as specific to their era. Realistically, our very human nature dictates that we must face that test regularly, and 2011 is no exception.
   

Montana State Budget Battle Shapes up

by: Doug Coffin

Thu Dec 09, 2010 at 06:12:47 AM MST

For most state agencies the Governor's budget is the high water mark. It's hard to imagine that the GOP will actually add much to any of the Gov's proposed numbers. They have about $200 million to work with to stay under the $3.58 billion legislative fiscal divisions revenue estimate, but there is also $240 million remaining from the previous fund balance. Look for the GOP to cut taxes with the business equipment tax at the top of the list. No, they won't find other revenue to make that up, instead they'll look to cut spending.

The Gov estimates $3.6 of revenue for the biennium.  The Gov's budget is also woven together, so pull one thread and the whole thing comes apart. That thread is likely education funding or the transfer of $100 million from current state funds/reserves into the general fund.

Budget battles not withstanding the MOP forum was straight on in demonstrating that the central function of government is not to manage a budget. Government is supposed to provide services and as David Ewer, the Gov's Budget Director likes to say "Government medicates, educates and incarcerates". So most of he state budget goes to medicaid, CHIP, K-12 education, Higher ed, and prisons. Under the GOP plan, when we factor in tax cuts, state government will be providing a lot less in terms of services.

That means college students will be paying higher tuition, localities will have to raise property taxes to fund our schools and maintain their services, doctors and hospitals will have to charge more and cut services. The GOP would argue that cutting government services creates more jobs and stimulates the economy. Democrats argue that education is the "speartip" of the 21st century economy and that health care is a right, not a privilege. Of course, being a lefty and an educator I'm coming down with the latter. However, a large majority of conservative Montana voters came down with the former. The stakes are huge, because if those voters and the GOP are wrong, Montanans will suffer the consequences for decades.    

Ochenski on Hill's returns to Montana politics

by: Matthew Koehler

Thu Nov 11, 2010 at 07:34:09 AM MST

"[Hill] says he's running for governor because he 'has a vision for Montana and its future.' But for those who remember the various outcomes of the 16 years when Republicans dominated Montana's political arena, his vision seems more like a throwback to the politics and policies of the past than new ways to deal with the many problems facing the state."

"During his campaign announcement, Hill ticked off a list of his priorities should he win the gubernatorial bid. First, and no surprise, is 'taking down the barriers to good-paying jobs.' While that sounds reasonable in Republican-speak, what it means in reality is exactly what we experienced during the Racicot years. What Hill calls 'barriers' are actually Montana's environmental protection laws and constitutional guarantee of a 'clean and healthful environment.'"

Click here to read Ochenski's entire column....  

UM Economics Expert: A Political Dead End?

by: Matthew Koehler

Wed Nov 10, 2010 at 13:58:14 PM MST

A Political Dead End?
By Dr. Thomas Michael Power

I wonder sometimes what the rest of the world thinks about the volatility of American politics. Four years, as well as two years ago, President Bush and his Republican allies had incredibly low approval ratings and Americans sent more Democrats to Congress, statehouses, and legislatures, and, ultimately, a Democrat to the White House. Republicans were repudiated. Commentators wondered if the Republican Party had a future as it began fighting within itself over the source of voter disaffection.

Just two years later voters have returned a majority of Republicans to the House of Representatives as well as to many state legislatures and statehouses. It certainly might cross some people's minds that we just cannot make up our minds or that we are a bit crazy, politically speaking.

But interestingly, polls of those independents who voted Republican in last week's election indicate that support for Republicans and their core policies remains low. Voters were voicing dissatisfaction with the continuing pain and destruction associated with the Great Recession and the failure of those in power to effectively do something about it. So incumbents were turned out of office and Democrats, being in the majority, made up many of those incumbents.

This result is not likely to be very productive for the American people and economy nor bring any "change" to Washington DC. The surging Republicans did not receive a mandate to pursue their more extreme agenda items such as dismantling Social Security and Medicare, weakening environmental regulation, turning Wall Street loose again to inflate another destructive bubble, or getting the government more involved in trying to dictate the most intimate aspects of our personal lives.

Nor can the Republicans deliver on their proposals to cut the federal deficit. They want to keep all of the Bush tax cuts in place and continue to aggressively prosecute the two wars that Bush started. Those were the sources of the Bush deficits even before the Great Recession hit. It is very unclear what it is the Republican will set out to cut in order to trim the deficit: Expenditures on highways and other vital infrastructure? Support for the military? Expenditures on helping us educate our kids? Support for the millions of unemployed? Food Stamps for families? Medical care for low income families? It seems unlikely that the aggressive pursuit of any of these will improve the Republicans' standing with the majority of American voters.

The Republican congressional leadership seems to recognize the fact that there is little they can do about the issues that so many Americans are worried about: namely jobs and the federal deficit.

Speaking candidly before their handlers told them to tone it down, that leadership made clear that their objective over the next two years is not to fix any of the nation's economic problems but, rather, to embarrass the President and Democrats in Congress so that Republicans can claim the Whitehouse and both Houses of Congress in the 2012 elections. That is, the next two years will be used for unrelenting partisan attacks that represent an early opening of the 2012 presidential election campaign.
That will produce nothing but more paralysis, gridlock, and negative partisan bickering. It certainly does not represent responsible governing, but it is, unfortunately, all that we are likely to get.

Despite the official proclamation that the recession ended early this year and the economy is now growing, we certainly are not out of the economic woods yet. There are more jobs losses coming in state and local government as stimulus money runs out and state and local budgets have to be balanced. The foreclosure avalanche is still growing and is likely to spread from residential homes to commercial real estate. Even those who do not risk losing their homes have seen the value of their assets, the most important of which for most people is their home, decline drastically. This makes them substantially poorer than they were two years ago and is likely to suppress household spending for some time to come. The ongoing housing mortgage crisis will also keep the construction industry from bouncing back. The stagnation and high unemployment rates will continue.

That will force deficits higher. As an International Monetary Fund report recently pointed out, most of the increases in government deficits here in the US as well as in other developed countries are tied to declines in tax revenues due to workers earning less, household buy less, and firms producing less. The deficits are not due to the explosive growth in new discretionary spending that can be quickly cut. If we cannot get households buying again and firms hiring so that that can produce more to meet the rising demand, we are not going to do anything significant about either jobs or the deficit.

That is why the bumper sticker political dialogue we are having about "cutting the deficit" by "shrinking government" or magically stimulating businesses to create more jobs to produce things no is in a position to buy is just so much hot air that will get us no where.

If you thought this last political campaign was pointlessly nasty and unproductive, just watch the next two years!

Rep. Gary MacLaren, Republican campaign treasurer, Resigns Over GOP Mail Strategy

by: Matt Singer

Mon Oct 25, 2010 at 10:57:24 AM MST

"I didn't agree with the negative ads they were putting out. I was appearing on them as the treasurer and everybody figured I was behind it, which I'm not."

This is another blow to a Montana Republican Party that has repeated leadership troubles of the years. They're also clearly overly reliant on consultants focused on a national message but who don't quite understand the nuts and bolts of Montana's fairly small town politics.

It's the system, stupid!

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Oct 24, 2010 at 18:37:25 PM MST

Spoiler alert! I'm going to give away the ending, so if you want to be surprised, stop reading now!

The bill failed because of a combination of partisan Republicans, commercial interests' control of Congress, and fearful Democrats with a too-steady eye on polling numbers:

In September, I asked Al Gore why he thought climate legislation had failed. He cited several reasons, including Republican partisanship, which had prevented moderates from becoming part of the coalition in favor of the bill. The Great Recession made the effort even more difficult, he added. "The forces wedded to the old patterns still have enough influence that they were able to use the fear of the economic downturn as a way of slowing the progress toward this big transition that we have to make."

..."The influence of special interests is now at an extremely unhealthy level," Gore said. "And it's to the point where it's virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change"....

As the Senate debate expired this summer, a longtime environmental lobbyist told me that he believed the "real tragedy" surrounding the issue was that Obama understood it profoundly. "I believe Barack Obama understands that fifty years from now no one's going to know about health care," the lobbyist said. "Economic historians will know that we had a recession at this time. Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change."

Quite the shocker, eh? Okay, maybe not. But certainly the failure of climate change legislation is the icing on the cake of the systematic failure of government, finance, and media. Sure, in DC-land, it was collateral damage in its strange Kabuki theater, but climate change is the biggest crisis we've ever faced, our response to it here and now likely determining whether our planet will be habitable for humans in the next generation or so. (Sorry, kids. A bunch of Senators didn't like the idea of hurting coal industry short-term profit.)

GOP Senate candidates a pack of Deniers

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Oct 18, 2010 at 09:22:48 AM MST

With one exception, none of the Republicans running for the Senate - including the 20 or so with a serious chance of winning - accept the scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for global warming.

The candidates are not simply rejecting solutions, like putting a price on carbon, though these, too, are demonized. They are re-running the strategy of denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which climate change is a hoax or conspiracy....

...all are custodians of a strategy whose guiding principle has been to avoid debate about solutions to climate change by denying its existence - or at least by diminishing its importance. The strategy worked, destroying hopes for Congressional action while further confusing ordinary citizens for whom global warming was already a remote and complex matter....

The thing is, global warming has already had economic consequences for the American taxpayer. In addressing PSC candidate Travis Kavulla's gutless response to impending ecological catastrophe, I mentioned how climate change has extended the fire season 78 days in the last three decades, a primary cause of a 10-billion-dollar uptick (pdf) in federal forest fighting costs in the first half of this decade alone. And that's just one narrow element of our economy that's been affected by rising temperatures. Consider the costs to agriculture by the infestation of exotic weed species in the West abetted by warming mountain winters...

To be even an agnostic on climate change entails a willful obliviousness that borders on recklessnss if you're a public official. But to deny warming...? And we're talking here about Senate candidates -- you know, the ones that are supposed to be more thoughtful and careful when it comes to policy.

Unbelievable.

The sound of one hand wringing

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Oct 15, 2010 at 07:50:31 AM MST

What's interesting, though, is that if you look at public opinion on climate change, the U.S. isn't actually that much of an outlier among the wealthier Western nations. In a 2007-2008 Gallup survey on global views of climate change, for instance, just 49 percent of American told pollsters that human beings are responsible for global warming. But the same figure for Britain (where Rush Limbaugh has relatively few listeners, I believe) was 48 percent, and belief in human-caused climate change was only slightly higher across northern Europe: 52 percent in the Czech Republic, 59 percent in Germany, 49 percent in Denmark, 51 percent in Austria, just 44 percent in the Netherlands, with highs of 63 percent in France and 64 percent in Sweden. (Doubts about anthropogenic global warming are considerably rarer, the study found, in southern Europe, Latin America and the wealthier countries of Asia.)

There's a reasonably large Western European constituency, in other words, for some sort of climate change skepticism. (And probably a growing one: In Britain, at least, as in the United States, the economic slump has dampened public enthusiasm for anti-emissions regulation.) But the politicians haven't been responding. Instead, Europe's political class, left and right alike, has worked to marginalize a position that it considers intellectually disreputable, even as the American G.O.P. has exploited that same position to win votes.

That is, the Republican party is using climate change skepticism for political gain, while their political peers in Europe eschew the quick fix and are contributing solutions to "the 21st century's biggest foreign-policy challenge," as Britain's Foreign Secretary and Conservative party leader William Hague said. "An effective response to climate change underpins our security and prosperity."

It's amazing how this political opportunism has morphed into a kind of belief. Take Dave Budge's sophist argument against the entirety of climate science: apparently the body's "oligopolistic nature" is "reinforc{ing} one approach rather than foster{ing} an environment in which a variety of approaches can flourish." Yet there's no evidence offered that climate science has indeed narrowed its approach. In reality, the opposite is true. Competing theories to the origin of climate change are investigated and tested - after all, that's what science is all about. And here's all you need to know: there exists no competing and scientifically valid theory to dispute the consensus that the climate is warming beyond the range of natural trends and that the major cause is rising levels of CO2. Where there is debate is in how quickly the climate will change and to what extent, how the changing climate will manifest itself, and the extent of the negative impacts to human health it will have.

Budge, as an economically-minded kind of guy, came to his conclusion in observing that economic modeling failed to correctly predict the current financial crises - therefore, he reasons, climate modeling couldn't possibly be accurate either, the data is too complex. But the climate - unlike economics - is a deterministic system. Actions always have the same results. If you turn down the sun, it gets cooler. If a surface is white, it's cooler. If you increase the presence of a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere - CO2, water vapor, or methane, say - it gets hotter. Accuracy in modeling is easier to achieve. On the other hand, as a human institution the economy is not deterministic. Sure, there are trends, but human free will prevents predictions for the economy (similar to history, say) to be anything other than guesswork. In fact, you could argue that economic theories themselves influence the economy. It's for that reason that economics is inherently political - unlike science.

Maybe that's why so many conservatives have rushed to denialist positions in the wake of their favored party's exploitation of climate change doubt: they come at the issue, not as scientists, but as political and economic ideologues. I suspect the reason why many dislike the findings of climate science is that the free market is inadequate on its own to react to the problem climate change poses. Climate change demands a state-led response that poses great economic risk. No wonder they've taken to quivering hand-wringing...

Still, market forces are incredibly useful as a means of innovation. It's too bad our nation's conservatives have abandoned our generation's greatest challenge.

Taking over the world, one bike at a time

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Aug 05, 2010 at 13:34:59 PM MST

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes is warning voters that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's policies, particularly his efforts to boost bike riding, are "converting Denver into a United Nations community."

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters who showed up at a campaign rally last week in Centennial.
Maes said in a later interview that he once thought the mayor's efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

Seriously?

The bicycle is the ultimate symbol of an egalitarian democracy. A bike is cheap. It doesn't require gasoline or other expensive fuel to ride. You don't have to pay expensive registration fees to ride a bicycle. It emits no pollutant. Bikes are easy to ride, and much safer than cars - if you don't ride in traffic. Bicycles need less infrastructure - a small concrete or packed dirt path will do. Bicycles thrive in pedestrian-friendly urban communities.

They may possibly save the world.

It's the automobile that controls us. We're essentially all forced to have a car. Because of our tax-funded infrastructure and our modern zoning laws and our egregiously underfunded public transportation systems, in most places you need a car to work, eat, and live. It's Exxon and BP that own us, not the United Nations.

But...seriously? This kind of late-night AM radio conspiracy is what we have to battle...from a Republican gubernatorial candidate? It doesn't matter if he's making it up, pandering to the crazy right, or just plumb nuts, the point here is that is all too common in contemporary politics, from climate change to health care reform, a group of political participants isn't interested in limiting the debate to what's real.

In a sense, it's sort of brilliant. They're going to places most rational people won't even go near. Even discounting it engages teh crazy, legitimizes it.

But how do you counter it? Make up your own sh*t?

Born to be wild: cognitive dissonance, conservatives, and the Great American Socialist Experiment

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Jul 18, 2010 at 20:14:14 PM MST

...the impulse toward denialism must be fought if conservatism is to prosper in a century when environmental issues will assume an ever greater profile on this increasingly hot, parched, crowded planet. Otherwise, the movement will come to be defined--and discredited--by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists.

Sounds good! I mean, I'm no free-market conservative...but if someone can posit a free-market solution to global warming (any solution!) and sell it, I'm all ears!

But the interesting point here is when Kay examines the psychological readiness among conservatives - who are otherwise, according to Kay, so practical when it comes to policy-making - to believe in wild illogical claims about climate change conspiracies:

But there is something deeper at play, too--a basic psychological instinct that public-policy scholars refer to as the "cultural cognition thesis," described in a recently published academic paper as the observed principle that "individuals tend to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce one or another idealized vision of how society should be organized ... Thus, generally speaking, persons who subscribe to individualistic values tend to dismiss claims of environmental risks, because acceptance of such claims implies the need to regulate markets, commerce and other outlets for individual strivings."

In simpler words, too many of us treat science as subjective -- something we customize to reduce cognitive dissonance between what we think and how we live.

Why, yes...that does make sense. I'm sure I've been victim to similar bits of cognitive dissonance, sure.

In the case of global warming, this dissonance is especially traumatic for many conservatives, because they have based their whole worldview on the idea that unfettered capitalism -- and the asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture it has spawned -- is synonymous with both personal fulfillment and human advancement. The global-warming hypothesis challenges that fundamental dogma, perhaps fatally.

"Unfettered capitalism"? "Spawned" the "asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture"?

Come again?

If there's any part of our lives that's been more underwritten and centrally planned than our asphalt crusin' gas guzzling, I'm not aware of it. The construction of the nation's highway system wasn't the result of free-market pressure by consumers looking for someplace to drive cars. It was a huge government-subsidized project to build highway and paved road infrastructure largely at the behest of corporate magnates who needed a market for oil and automobiles, and rigged  taxation and public funding to derail (pun intended) the streetcar and passenger train system already in place.

Calls for a green economy and transportation system represents nothing new, as far as government ventures are concerned. And, if it were up to me, it wouldn't involve any extra funding. If I were dictator, I'd simply start trimming money earmarked for highway projects, and giving it to mass transit projects. And, frankly, in building a green economy, we have a chance to do so openly and democratically, and not at the behest of corporations

But that just underscores the cognitive, dissonance, right? I mean, resistance to climate change legislation isn't opposition to a conspiracy of environmentalists looking to destroy American industry; instead, it's a blind defense of a kind of American socialist experiment that went horribly wrong. Admitting that the last century of car culture was a big mistake implies admitting it's nothing but a big government project, even if it does feel free-spirited to roll your window down and stick your elbow out the window while you drive 278 from Jackson to Dillon...

Bipartisan Curious: Legalize Queer

by: Matt Singer

Fri Jul 09, 2010 at 11:04:59 AM MST

The answer can fall pretty clearly into two different categories:

1. The Democratic Party platform this year endorsed non-discrimination legislation similar to what passed in Missoula this spring. Going beyond just legalizing gay and all the way into legalizing queer, the platforms' contrast couldn't be starker.
2. The Democratic Party also clearly isn't talking about this issue.

So where's the response from our Democratic elected officials calling this out in language at least as strong as these Republican grasstops? It'd be nice to see.

Doing the right thing unexpectedly trumps politics

by: Montana Cowgirl

Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 17:19:36 PM MST

Last month you read here that Senator Ryan Zinke (R-Whitefish) had been considering pushing the ball forward on the international effort to save the Flathead and Glacier National Park from degredation created by proposed coal mining operations in Canada.

The word on the street up in the Whitefish, where this issue looms extremely large, is that Zinke will introduce a bond measure in the state legislature to accomplish this.  At the bottom of all of this is the filth and effluent and goo that would run off into the river and into the Montana Flathead valley if the Canadian mining were to go forward.  Max has been talking about it for 30 years but has never actually done anything about it. Tester doesn't seem much engaged at all.

Schweitzer got an MOU signed, but the progress stopped there because of the lack of a federal appropriation.

The Flathead Beacon is now reporting that there may be hope for moving forward with what it calls "the historic agreement banning natural resource development along the North Fork Flathead River, signed by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell" in spite of previously deadlines and current obstacles.

In a May 26 posting, the blog Left in the West reported on a rumor that Whitefish Republican state Sen. Ryan Zinke was planning to introduce a bond measure in the next Legislature to compensate the B.C. mining firms for their sunk costs if an agreement had not been reached on the payment by then. Reached last week, Zinke said he hasn't been involved in any negotiations and would need to learn more about the issue, but that he would contact Schweitzer to discuss such a measure if it is still necessary next year.

"I haven't talked to the governor's office on options, but it's not out of the realm of possibilities and I'd certainly consider it," Zinke said. "If we can't figure something out, then I would work with the governor to move on something."

Kudos to Sen. Zinke for giving a damn about his district and his willingness to work with the Governor to come up with a solution even though they aren't of the same political party.  Of course it's a smart political move on his part too, given that his name is in the mix for GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2012, as Jay notes below.

All I did was sniff a beer!

by: Jay Stevens

Thu May 27, 2010 at 08:34:32 AM MST

Johnson, 59, said he's convinced he was not in violation of Montana's DUI law, although a breathalyzer test showed his blood-alcohol content at 0.24 percent - three times the legal limit for drunken driving.

"The thing that has really come out of this experience for me is, that I think it's incredibly stupid to have so much as a sip of alcohol and get behind the wheel," he said. "I'll never let it happen again."

With a BAC three times over the legal limit, that means, as Pogie points out, 12 to 15 beers...

At a .24 BAC, Johnson would be "feeling dazed/confused or otherwise disoriented. May need help to stand/walk....Blackouts are likely at this level so you may not remember what has happened."

Doesn't Johnson's excuse sound familiar?

Scott Boggio, after breathing a .14 BAC during the 2007 legislative session: "Well, I guess that, you know, anyone who goes out for dinner and has a few drinks along with their meal can get a DUI." (At a .14 BAC, Boggio would be experiencing "Gross motor impairment and lack of physical control. Blurred vision and major loss of balance....Judgment and perception are severely impaired."

Greg Barkus' lawyer, on having a .16 BAC an hour after the Flathead Lake Boat crash: ""We adamantly disagree with those alleged levels set forth in the charging document....We have several witnesses that will testify that Mr. Barkus was not impaired at the time of the accident." At a .16 BAC, Barkus would be experiencing impairment and lack of physical control, blurred vision and loss of balance, and "The drinker has the appearance of a 'sloppy drunk.'"

What? Is there a Republican boot camp somewhere that teaches GOP lawmakers a strategy of denial to dismiss DUIs?

GOP Candidate Tom Burnett = Glenn Beck Wannabe + Crazier

by: Montana Cowgirl

Thu May 20, 2010 at 20:35:29 PM MST

The whole site is odd, a little scary, and some of it is almost completely random.

Take for example (typos candidate's own):

People are angry with anger. They blame Republicans for standing int he way of the good work of government expansion in Congress. Their opinions seem tailored by CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS. They hate bickering, blaming mostly Republicans. Of course, their loathing and vituperation would disappear were they elected. They are angrier than the Mitch McConnell they blame.

Reading through his absurd fantasies and his melodramatic bluster, you have to wonder what would happen if he actually got elected and made speeches like this on the house floor.

What, for example is one supposed to make of this?

An eleven year-old boy approached as I was tying my campaign sign on the Lewis lawn to a green ash tree. He inquired if I was campaigning. I said yes, for myself. "I'm Tom Burnett." He seemed pleased. He expressed disapproval of the president. He hadn't heard of the suntan tax. He was shaken by it. He was sure that, to pay for national health, Congress would be tempted to tax video games. That alarmed him. His name was Uno.

It's very difficult to know how this is supposed to be taken. Jon Stewart nailed it when he lampooned Beck himself - "Tell us, random word on the chalk-board, what's the truth?"  

Like Beck, Burnett's posts seem to be nothing more than incendiary words thrown randomly together to illicit an emotional response and then tell us whom to blame (like the poor or Indians.)  

UPDATE:Burnett's GOP primary opponent has dropped out. He'll face the popular, effective and sane Representative J.P. Pomnichowski in the general.

Rehberg's Latest Lie Totally Exposed

by: Montana Cowgirl

Tue May 11, 2010 at 19:47:05 PM MST

"The staff members "were not working."

Rehberg's hack "doesn't believe it" because it is a blatant lie.  

Some friends of mine from DC were in town this weekend visiting, and over dinner we were talking about local politics.  Both friends had worked for members of Congress in years past--one for more than 10 years.  They found the recent story about Rehberg, the accident and the alcohol issues "absolutely mind-blowingly ludacris."  
 
They filled me in on what it means to work for a member of Congress and why Rehberg's actions then and now are indefensible.  
 
The part of the latest Rehberg story infuriated them the most was the claim that the staff "weren't on the clock."  They told me that when they were staffing their "member," they were always on the clock - and not just because they are salaried. It was their job to stick to her or him like glue, no matter the time, place or situation.  That's they whole reason they were hired.
 
They said it doesn't matter whether or not it was a "working dinner."  When a staffer is with the "member" - s/he is working.  Reporters are welcome to ask this of any congressional staffer anywhere.  Apparently, this is how it is in every state.  Period. End of story.

Second, Rehberg has a responsibility for his staff, he shouldn't put them in dangerous situations where they really can't walk away.  He obviously doesn't want to admit his staffers were obviously staffing him, because according to the Department of Labor: 

"Employers also have a general duty under the Occupational Safety and Health Act to provide their employees with work and a workplace free from recognized, serious hazards."

What kind of choice were those two staffers offered?  Get in the boat being driven by a drunk, or abandon the Congressman, embarrassing him in front of Barkus, and then figure out how to get back to Bigfork on foot?  Risk their jobs?

Rehberg put his staff in serious danger and he has never taken responsibility for it. Apparently, in no other state would Rehberg have been allowed to get away with this.  But here in Montana, when you combine Rehberg's absurd sense of big-fish-in-a-small-pond entitlement, with a compliant editorial corps that wants its reporters to function as stenographers rather than journalists, you get a big ol' liar and the merry band of liars with whom he's chosen to surround himself.

Red-Ink Rehberg's Duplicity Will Catch Him in the End

by: Montana Cowgirl

Fri Apr 23, 2010 at 17:24:02 PM MST

As a multi-millionaire with a penchant for spending money like a drunken sailor in his personal and political life, Rehberg has always tried to find his pretend "conservativeness" by appealing to the outer limits of the political stratosphere.  Since he can't claim to be a fiscal conservative,  the fight is now on between Denny Rehberg and his primary opponent as to who is more of a right-wing nut job.

The fight started when a Paultard pretending to be Democrat (Dane Clark) was spotted distributing literature in support of Mark French, the Republican candidate for Congress challenging incumbent Rep. Denny Rehberg.

The Flathead Beacon picked up the story. What they didn't write, is that last year he ran as a Repub in the primary against Bruce Tutvedt
and has served as a contact on the Paultard forum DailyPaul.com.   As to why he is out to dupe voters by running as Democrat, Clark is silent.  But the fact that a Paultard was campaigning against Rehberg caused Rehberg to get defensive.

All of a sudden I look like the moderate and that never happens," Rehberg said. "I feel a little uncomfortable."

Rehberg got so nervous someone wouldn't think he was a nut-job that he sought the endorsement of Doctor Paul himself. Rehberg tweeted they are "working together."

Only a complete dimwit like Dennis Rehberg would think it was a good idea to pander to these extremes, and far as I am concerned, abject lunatics to try to cover for his reckless spending in Congress.  

Even if they don't find out about his duplicity now, Rehberg will pay a price for it in the general election and when he runs for Governor in 2012--when he'll have to answer to the great center of the state.

This is becoming a rather difficult week for the wingnuts.

by: Montana Cowgirl

Tue Apr 13, 2010 at 20:14:47 PM MST

The question:  Why not a peep from the lobbyist for the Montana Realtors' Association?

The answer: He is John Sinrud, former representative (R-Belgrade), long-time Schweitzer antagonist, and right-wing nut-job.  Here is Singer's " greatest hits" of Sinrud.  

The dilemma: His politics probably force him to personally agree with Schweitzer here, that you shouldn't be paying $15 a square foot for real estate when you can find $10 on the market.  (Republican politicians are finally starting to get in trouble for their extravagant spending, and I'm not even mentioning the Republican National Committee's expense-account party at a bondage club.)

But his real estate mogul clients probably don't agree with this form of fiscal restraint.  It must be a terrible pickle for poor John, taking his froth-at-the-mouth-rabidity into the nervous breakdown variety.  Plus, I doubt he'll get an audience with the Gov anytime soon to air his clients' grievances...

Another "ouch" for a nut-job. It's a bad time to be a RWNJ in Montana.  

Paul Krugman and the non-negligible probability of utter disaster

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Apr 12, 2010 at 09:37:07 AM MST

Read it. It's one of the better single-piece story laying out the case for government action on climate change I've seen.

And here's a quote that's especially relevant to Montana:

That said, some specific rules may be required. James Hansen, the renowned climate scientist who deserves much of the credit for making global warming an issue in the first place, has argued forcefully that most of the climate-change problem comes down to just one thing, burning coal, and that whatever else we do, we have to shut down coal burning over the next couple decades.

More below the fold...

The demise of climate change is greatly exaggerated

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Apr 09, 2010 at 09:15:15 AM MST

Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy. Efforts to use climate science to threaten an apocalyptic future should we fail to embrace green proposals, and to characterize present-day natural disasters as terrifying previews of an impending day of reckoning, have only served to undermine the credibility of both climate science and progressive energy policy.

Citing flatlined public support for belief in climate change, Nordhaus and Shellenberger advocate moving away from using immediate weather events - especially natural disasters - as a basis for supporting good, progressive low-carbon energy policy that's in our nation's "economic, national security, and environmental interest." (However, they never mention what line of reasoning should be used to support said policy.)

I'm down with avoiding using specific weather events to support climate change. That's something I can get behind. But that's not why I received the link. The reader sent the link to discourage me from mentioning climate change at all when I write about energy, as if somehow we've reached a state where the doubt of enough misinformed Americans trumps scientific reality, as if somehow the state of the climate were a battle of wills, not levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Of course, that's a foolish notion. For one, policy should not be based on irrational public opinion. As Todd Tanner writes in New West, most climate skeptics are "past the point where scientists can convince them or where logical arguments can persuade them," and that they've become ideologues, and whether they're driven by religion or politics or their distrust of the science is ultimately irrelevant." Tanner:

Here's what we need to know. The science is clear and unequivocal. We are dumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, and all that carbon is warming the planet and making our oceans more acidic. Our dependence on fossil fuels has created a worldwide crisis that threatens every single aspect of our lives.

And, yes, wouldn't it be great if we could find some rhetorical silver bullet that utterly convinced the country that we need to wean ourselves off of our fossil fuel addiction - if not for the carbon, say, but for the deadly air pollution? Of course, I don't even agree that talk around climate change has failed just because a handful of people still claim it doesn't exist. A vast majority of Americans believe the US government should put a "great deal" (pdf) of effort into dealing with global warming, and a plurality believe the US sign on to an international treaty to "reduce significantly greenhouse gas emissions." If this is failure of message, I'd love to see the numbers on a successful public campaign. (Numbers, by the way, courtesy of Tanner.)

But the fact is that there are deep-pocketed people out there who have a strong interest in burning fossil fuels, who will work actively to combat any effort to change our energy infrastructure, and who will sow misinformation and doubt among the citizenry and who will politicize health and safety to thwart reform. That is, it doesn't matter what rhetoric you use to support progressive energy policy, you will be attacked. It's better to ignore the concern trolls and forge on ahead with values that most Americans share, like a clean and healthful environment and a better future for our children.

Climate change exists. We need to do something about it.