More Bait and Switch

I've had several "requests" or questions about why I no longer publish the Montana Green Bulletin.  The reason is lack of resources, including even a home internet connection, as well as the fact that the Montana Green Party basically doesn't  exist anymore, and barely existed for the 7 years I published this weekly bulletin from 2002-2009.  Yet, in re-reading some of my writing, then, it was the best I've ever done.  I haven't added anything to this blogspot since 2008, but I have another "greateco's blog" which is attached to this one, and I've been writing new stuff for that, of a broader, non-partisan nature.

The following essay would have been posted there, but I thought I should put it here because it refers to the MGP and our earlier campaigns and experience.  I'll put the link on Facebook, so those who missed the first round can have better access to this material.
- Paul Stephens


More Bait and Switch

I got a -4 rating for my comment about the Republican bill to begin the Montana transition to a gold or commodity standard.  This bill was a response to the present economic crisis (which most Republicans and all Democrats are totally in denial about, citing various "Keynesian" strategies to get out of it).  Austrian School economists (Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, et. al. - now there are thousands of them) have always supported sound money and a gold or other ("commodity reserve") currency and banking system.  Otherwise, we believe, with the dollar is in free-fall, the federal government will soon be bankrupt, if not simply cease to exist.  My 50-year study of economics has convinced me that sound money is the basis for a sustainable economy as well as a free society, so I support such bills enthusiastically.

And I am also a Secessionist and Nullificationist.  And I especially support Jury Nullification, which every "liberal" and "civil rights"  group opposed, when that came up.  Most of the leftist websites I read support it. Why wouldn't leftists or even socialists support state (as opposed to Federal) sovereignty and sound money?  Do we suppose that they are opposed to good government and justice, as well?  Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a white person, descendent of Revolutionary War soldiers, I have always supported the Constitution, and whenever the Bill of Rights and other provisions in the Constitution are flagrantly violated by the Feds, we have the right to end our relationship with that entity, and act in our own collective Montana self-interest.

Read the Declaration of Independence.  Did they somehow repeal that when they wrote the U.S. Constitution?  No one thought so at the time, although Jefferson and others warned against more centralization of money and power, preferring to keep a weak central government under The Articles of Confederation - the position of the South in the (un)Civil War.  The U.S. Constitution was only ratified (like Montana's nearly 200 years later) by a cat's whisker.  If we don't have the right to secede, we're still a colony of Britain , Russia (their trading posts went as far south as San Francisco), or maybe France, via Louisiana, except for the Western Slope and a bit of North Central Montana close to the border - which is on the Hudson's Bay watershed.

Or, maybe none of these colonial claims are valid.  That would seem to be the correct position under a real legal system - under a true and just Natural Law.  We never were a colony - especially here in Montana.  We were born free, and always have the same inalienable rights to form our own government and political alliances, and to "nullify," resist, or disobey any outside usurpation of these rights.  We also, incidentally, have an absolute right to self-medicate and safely and responsibly use any plants or animals for food, medicine, or other useful purposes.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

No legislative session is complete without some sort of military celebration, and attempts to get more benefits for veterans, attract more military spending and "missions" to Montana, and otherwise promote and glorify military service as well as whatever wars or other "actions" are going on.  And there is a tacit agreement never to mention how much this costs, or whether or not it is fair to the taxpayers or, least of all, to the veterans, themselves.

In this legislature, a resolution was passed to "Welcome home" the Vietnam Veterans, some 40 years after most of them actually came home.  This was apparently directed at Jane Fonda and the anti-war movement of the 1960's and '70's, who opposed that war and all foreign wars since then.  I didn't see the exact wording of the resolution, but it was reported as being a response to the persistant attitude among some veterans  that they had been disrespected, spat upon, or otherwise "attacked" and "beat up" (Roger McConnell's words - the local "Stand-down" organizer) when they came home, defeated, because Congress cut off their funding.

No mention was (or is ever) made in these "resolutions" that the Vietnam War was illegal, immoral, and a case of the most powerful country in the world utterly devastating a peaceful, small ex-colony of France, which had pulled out after World War II, in accordance with the prevailing attitude to end colonialism, and let every country revert to self-government under United Nations protection.

Unlike Korea and most subsequent wars up to Gulf War I, the Vietnam War was not the result of concerted UN resolutons.  Instead, Vietnam marked an effective end of UN control over international conflicts.  All the UN resolutions were on the side of the Vietnamese.  It was the U.S. and a few allies (like Australia and Canada) who undertook to unilaterally "stop communism" in Vietnam.  In attempting to do this impossible task, they "sacrificed" 58,000 American troops, and several million Vietnamese - most of them civilians.  The current Resolution signed by the Governor mentioned that some 100,000 Vietnam Vets later committed suicide, and according the KRTV news story, it was suggested that this had something to do with people at home not "welcoming" or otherwise supporting them when they returned.

Those of us who opposed that war (and it was a large majority by the time it ended in 1974) did not blame the draftees or even the enlistees who fought in that war.  We might have questioned the training of officers for it on our college campuses, and many such programs were ended or suspended during that period.  And if we had friends or family who supported the war, we might have argued with them, or even gotten into physical altercations with them.  What could possibly be "wrong" with this from the veteran's point of view?  It was Johnson, Humphrey, MacNamara, Nixon, and Kissinger whom we blamed - not our friends and neighbors who suffered and often died there, fighting another stupid, iunneccessary, and counterproductive war - all for the benfit of the war profiteers, contractors, and suppliers.  

And we ended the Draft - conscription.  That was one of my main political causes at the time.  We falsely believed that wars like Vietnam couldn't happen without conscripts.  Who would volunteer for such a war?  Unfortunately, we were wrong.  Now, we have a mercenary army, which is claiming an ever-greater part of our national wealth and sustenance, and threatens to take over the government entirely, as mercenary armies have been wont to do throughout history.

Conscription gave us a class-free citizen army.  Yes, there were officers who were college or Academy-trained, but anyone who has been in combat knows that these guys are vastly unpopular "90 day wonders" or "college boys" who are also targeted by enemy troops and otherwise at much greater risk of being killed or wounded even than "the grunts."  Indeed, a large reason why the Vietnam War ended was because of "fragging" or other underground revolts by the "grunts," themselves.

Montanans are known for being great warriors.  We always have been, and we've always volunteered or otherwise served in military conflicts in far greater numbers than our population warranted.  And this is especially a matter of pride for Native Americans, who weren't even citizens until after the Great War - led by a general, Pershing, who had served in many Western Frontier posts, including what is now Rocky Boy's Reservation, as well as the Spanish-American War (an imperialistic "grab" by which we gained control of the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, while "liberating" Cuba with economic conquest) an early form, perhaps, of what Naomi Klein calls "Disaster Capitalism."

World War I was probably the most unpopular war of all, with Butte miners trying to stop the war by striking, and thus shutting down the copper supply necessary for shell casings and many other war materiels.  The strike lasted for 7 months - led by Irish, German, Serbo-Croatian, and others who opposed this British/French war, and American participation in it.  After that, Montana said "Never, again", and the vast majority of Montanans (and most other Americans - those wanting to fight Hitler were less than 10%) opposed our entry into World War II right up to December 7, 1941.

But here's where the "bait and switch" comes in.  Our love and respect for veterans is twisted into supporting all current and future wars - as though we are "honoring" our vets by sending their sons and grandsons (and now grand-daughters) off to fight, die, and be maimed in the sames kinds of stupid wars, in response to the same kinds of  provoked, contrived and often "false flag" operations like Pearl Harbor.  

Our complicity with imperialism and the eradication of indigenous peoples in the quest for gold, oil, drugs, or just land and political control goes back to 1492.  During the Lewis and Clark Bi-centennial celebrations, I asked several times, "What possible claim could the U.S. (the Federal Government) have to the Louisiana Purchase territories?"  We paid off Napoleon, the equivalent of a modern Hitler or Stalin, who had overthrown the Bourbons, the original claimants of Louisiana (due to the efforts of Catholic missionaries), etc.   But the Bourbons were overthrown and executed, and all Church properities in France were confiscated and re-distributed to peasants and French Revolutionary war veterans.

Next, the Louisiana Territory was taken over by Spain (since it still had a monarchy).  After Napoleon conquered Spain (but never entirely, although he put his brother on the Spanish Throne), he pretended to "reclaim" Louisiana!  Did he also reclaim Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, and Peru?  Hell no!  And they wouldn't have recognized his claims for a second.

So, it was really Spain, as Napoleon's puppet, which sold us a Bill of Goods for a huge amount of gold - something like the total cost of running the federal government as it was, then, for a year or more.  Montana still recognizes this Spanish claim with its name and motto.  And no one really wants to change that.  But the consequence, which the British and Russians have never forgotten, was that it financed Napoleon's wars of conquest, as well as the cultural and scientific revolutions he promoted.

Good old "Honest Tom" Jefferson, who had helped foment the French Revolution, along with that other revolutionary, Tom Paine, somehow accepted Napoleon as the real "owner" of the whole Louisiana Territory, and contrived to give him $13 million in badly-needed gold to continue fighting the British, Germans, Austrians, Spaniards, Russians, and anyone else who didn't acknowledge his divine supremacy!  Why did they hate us, with the British going so far as to try to recapture the rebel United States in the War of 1812?  But it was We, The United States, who declared war, there, to protect our "sovereignty" and rights to trade with Napoleon's Empire!  We were gambling our very status as a free nation on some trade and profits!  Yet, the British recognized, early on, that friends are better than colonies, although they now apparently see themselves as a colony of the United States.

And so, I've concluded that Montana is no more part of the United States than we are part of France or Spain.  THERE WERE PEOPLE HERE.  WE STOLE THEIR LAND, THEIR LIVELIHOOD, AND NEARLY ALL THEIR RESOURCES.

I once had a French girlfriend in the 1970's (the Vietnam War was still in progress).  I asked her, "What do the French think of Napoleon, now?"  She spoke mostly French, for the benefit of her kids, who were being raised in the Seattle area after the death of their father, who had worked on a Boeing assembly line making war planes.  So, she acted out the message that Napoleon was a fighter - a real hero to her people (even though he was Corsican and actually had an Italian name), and to herself.  Her father had been a Resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation.  And she was a Revolutionary, sympathetic to the IRA and people in Canada who opposed the British domination of that country (which had originally been a French colony).

Remember after 9-11, when the French refused to participate in the attack on Iraq and Afghanistan?  For a time, this was met with intense loathing and hatred by many Americans.  We were changing "French fries" to "Freedom fries," and otherwise waging "hate the French" campaigns, threatening boycotts against wine, cheese and Cognac.  I was driving cab in those days, and dealt with Malmstrom personnel of all ranks on a daily basis.  Among missiliers here in Great Falls, the resentment of France was intense.  I remember being shocked (if not awed) to have a drunk missilier tell me that the launch officers all carried the co-ordinates of Paris in their wallets, so if nuclear war broke out, they were prepared to wreak revenge on the French "traitors" to our cause.

I busted him for that, re-telling the story in the Montana Green Bulletin, but I didn't know or mention his name, and no one from military intelligence or the Security apparatus ever followed up on it (as they had when I "warned" President Bush not to come to Great Falls, because "we don't want to be your Dallas or Oklahoma City.")  It took the FBI, Secret Service, and local police less than 5 hours to be knocking at my door when I e-mailed that issue of the Bulletin.  They were impressed by the Norwegian flag on my wall, though, and didn't stay long.

The Missilier may have been simply "making a joke" or hoping to score with the local girls, but such "jokes" can quickly get out of hand.  Most people don't realize that the launch officers can actually dial in the coordinates of any target, and even though they are assigned certain ones, it only takes a few seconds to change the target destination.  This, alone, should be enough reason to immediately close down facilities like Malmstrom, which give a few "jokesters" like this the power to destroy 150 or more cities, almost anywhere in the world.  What were we thinking?

And how quick we are to forget, and how quickly the French changed their tune to support NATO (which they had quit entirely under DeGaulle, creating their own nuclear "deterrent" and their nuclear power industry as well) and its later missions starting with the NATO attack on Serbia, which was actually planned on French territory.  Their refusal to support the attack on Iraq and Afghanistan was simply prudence.  Everyone but Dick Cheney knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, and in any case, Iraq was a former British "protectorate" or mandate, so France felt they had no business there.  And rightly so.

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Yes, the Blackfeet, the Crow, the Salish, the Gros Ventre, and other indigenous tribes STILL OWN MONTANA.  They are the ones who should be deciding these things.  As for the Chippewa, Cree, Cheyenne, Lakota, and other tribes who came here as refugees or displaced Metis as "Manifest Destiny" evolved - well, they certainly have more rights to be here than white people or corporations.  They have generally integrated with the original First Peoples, and are accepted by them.  And so are we Europeans who aren't racist and exploitative towards Native peoples and their land.

It took me a long time to understand that Indians aren't racist towards white people - like we have mostly been towards them.  They just don't "get" racism, and neither do most other indigenous people who used to be called "primitive."  They are always welcoming towards people of good will who want to trade or learn with them - even Christian missionaries, who weren't always good citizens or respectful of traditional peoples and cultures.

And, in conclusion, just why is this so difficult so understand?  Because it threatens some corporate profits?  What other basis for truth, justice, property, law, etc. is there?  If it's all just conquest and theft, then let the gangstas rule.  Why are we locking them up?  Might makes right, according to the White Man's Government.  Are we free and self-governing, or are we colonial slaves?  It's time to make a choice.

Montana is a sovereign state.  It's time we started acting like it - and I don't mean foreign corporations strip-mining our coal and gold, spraying deadly cyanide and Roundup everywhere, or anything like that.  It's Mother Earth.  We cannot rape, poison, or otherwise exploit our Mother.  Case closed.

 -  Paul Stephens