Open Letter to Montana Democrats

An Open Letter to the Montana Democrats

I started this letter last January, with the following comment to my old friend Bill Stryzich on Facebook.

"Whenever you start opposing more coal development, tar sands, etc. and stop agreeing with Republicans and ALEC on the "need" for more laws, more prisons, more wars, and more "Homeland Security," I might vote for some of you guys. Right now, you're worse than Republicans - taking our votes under false pretenses.

Another thing: where were you guys when the Republicans repealed our medical cannabis law, approved by 62% of the voters? Or any of the other ALEC stuff they rammed through which targets not only the environment, but all environmentalists and environmental sustainability? Started by the "prison industry," ALEC is largely responsible for the $trillion+ costs of the War on Drugs. Until you dump Baucus and the bankster-Pharma drug cartels (and that absurd Obamacare, which actually bails out the drug and insurance cartels instead of expanding health care), you have no hope. I've been campaigning against ALEC since 2002, and all the Democrats except Steve Doherty claimed they never heard of it until it came out that they were "anti-union" and behind all the stuff in Wisconsin and Ohio last year."

Fast forward to the present

Every major Democrat in Montana now supports the Canadian Tar Sands project and the associated Keystone XL pipeline, which will run through Montana.  Only a few Native American Democrats oppose it.  This is considered to be the most environmentally destructive project in history.  It will mark the end of all efforts to prevent a major climate change catastrophe.  It will dig up and destroy thousands of square miles of sensitive arctic habitat.  And it produces at least twice the CO2 per unit of delivered energy of any other source.  
Most of you still support more coal leasing and development - even those endorsed and coached by the Montana Conservation Voters, which really is now "a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party" - thanks to Ben Graybill, Aart Dolman, and other functionaries who refused to endorse Green Party candidates when we had them. 

Medical MJ was at least 1000 FTE taxpaying jobs - some said a $1 billion industry in Montana - others put it at $800 million, but that's using multipliers and such, which are often misleading or false.  When the Republicans talk about "job creation," why don't you remind them of this?  Nevertheless, the main benefit was that it decriminalized the lives and lifestyles of 50,000 or more Montanans,  and was a major step towards total marijuana decriminalization - something which already exists in 5 states and most foreign countries.  Plus, it took a big bite out of the "prison industry" lobby, which is well on the way to consolidating our police state one-party system envisioned by Karl Rove and the other Neocons. Even more important, it reduced the costs of health care, and established the right to self-medicate, and use the treatments which are cheapest and most efficaceous, independent of the legalized drug cartels. 

Gov. Schweitzer could have saved the Democratic party for the next 10 years with a simple veto. He dropped the ball. And I'm not sure Steve Bullock wouldn't have done the same, after repeatedly refusing to apply consumer protection laws to medical services and  hospital rates and prices, which are anywhere from 4-10 times higher than they should be.  The late Joe Mazurek single-handedly destroyed the health care system in Great Falls, approving a corporate takeover of our two charitable, locally-owned and controlled hospitals to create a monopolistic monster which has resulted in the deaths of dozens of people and firing anyone who opposed it, while doubling the costs.  This was in opposition to 95% or more of the doctors, patients, donors, and the general public who relied on them.  He even told us "the fix was in", and nothing we could do or say would prevent it. 

On the House Debate last night, "Obamacare" was a big topic, with Ms. Gillan defending it, and Mr. Daines opposing it.  As we in Montana well know, it should be called "Baucuscare" because it was his Finance Committee which stacked the deck and rammed it down our throats in the form of a multi-trillion dollar bailout of the bankrupt insurance companies and Pharma monopolies, which are pushing drugs now at unprecedented rates.  Since the Clinton Administration, they have pumped billions into the corporate media with direct consumer advertising to "ask your doctor for Drug X".  The main effect is to steer editorial policy in favor of these monopolies and against publicly-financed healthcare systems.  And the cost of this advertising (reflected in their monopoly pricing) is many times the R&D costs which they use to justify their outrageous prices.

In fact, most of the R&D is already paid for by the NIH, public universities, and independent research labs like McLaughlin in Great Falls.  What the Pharma monopolies pay for is the FDA-mandated testing protocols, which now average more than half a BILLION dollars for any new drug.  Drugs already approved and tested in Europe or Asia are not allowed to be imported, and that testing must be repeated (at maybe 10 times or more the cost) by the American manufacturer or licensee.  All of this "regulation" (which the Republicans pretend to oppose) is at the behest and under the control of those being regulated - something which any Libertarian knows, or should know, but Democrats and Republicans strenuously deny.  Yet, we heard no mention of that from the Libertarian candidate in the debate.

In fact, in the Congressional debate last night, they didn't even talk about health care.  It was all about "insurance," as though private, for profit insurance companies have anything to do with health care, except to make it much more expensive and restricting access to it.  They mean to further "regulate" the insurance companies so that they don't make so much money, or actually have to pay more than their already bloated premiums will cover.  Good luck with that. 

At the time the ACA was passed, Rep. Rehberg (who seems to have some fairly astute advisers) warned that it does nothing to reduce health care costs, which average 4 times higher in real terms (% of GDP) than any other country, while producing the worst health care outcomes in the developed world.  Sen Tester endorsed Single Payer in his primary campaign 6 years ago.  On that basis, Paul Richards dropped out of the primary, thus giving Tester a victory over his insurance-regulating opponent, Morrison.  

So what did Tester do, then?  He went to the K-Street bill mills and got big donations from the insurance and Pharma lobbies (not necessarily the lobbyists, themselves, but the lawyers who collect the contributions and distribute them to "deserving" candidates), which have controlled Sen Baucus to the extent that he pretended never to have even heard of a Single Payer system.  Most who supported Obamacare originally did so on the promise that there would be a "robust public option" - Medicare for anyone who wanted it, which would be financed by a 7% payroll tax, and free, like Medicaid, to low-income and the unemployed.  Ironically, this would have saved the private insurance "industry" as well, by shifting all the high-risk patients to the public system.  But monopolies want it all.  We all remember how Baucus had national leaders for Single Payer arrested and removed from his hearings, which consisted of nothing but AMA, Hospital Association, and insurance lobbyists and spokespeople.

The only Montana Democrat who supported Single Payer and continues to oppose Obamacare is Gov. Schweitzer.  This was reported, if at all, as being "off-message" when he introduced Pres. Obama and Sen. Baucus in Belgrade, when they were doing a PR tour in support of the ACA.

Now, Democrats, do you really think we have no memories?  Do you really think we're going to vote for Tester, Gillan, or Bullock once, again?  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  You had an excellent, winning candidate in Franke Wilmer - far wiser and more experienced than Ms. Gillan, but the Machine had selected one of it's own, Ms. Gillan.  

Sen. Tester has all the advantages of incumbency, but having betrayed his core constituencies of environmentalists with his absurd "pay off the timber industry and resource lobbyists and unions" bill (Forest Jobs and Recreation Act); seniors and low-income people by voting for the Insurance and Drug Monopoly Bailout Bill (ACA); and finally, and most egregiously, supporting AIPAC and its many vendettas against Islamic and oil-producing countries, he is now actually trailing his opponent - a man who was once the laughing-stock of the House of Representatives. Remember the "Don't help people with AID's.  Just let them die?"  statements of Rehberg?  I wonder why the Tester campaign didn't dredge them up?  And Tester had the effrontery, when still President of the Montana Senate, to vote for the Republican "Defense of Marriage Act" which made gay marriage illegal!  Unbelievable. 

These votes reflect the views of the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate, today.  Just let the poor die.  Turn them over to religious charities.  Let them pray for salvation.  Don't fund anything.  Let the states take care of it  - even though it was the Federal Government which let the corporations steal us blind.  And Tester seems to agree with that.  He is not for state sovereignty.  He is for more military spending.  He is for more wars.  He just voted, with 91 other Senators, to support Israel if it attacks Iran.  

And worst of all, as an organic farmer, he isn't even opposing or asking for hearings to investigate Monsanto, Cargill, and the other agribusiness monopolies and their role in foreign policy and the phoney "free trade" legislation sponsored by Baucus to force other countries to buy our contaminated food.  Monsanto lobbyists and former executives totally control the Obama Department of Agriculture.  When I told his local ag staff person in Great Falls that there were two Cargill heirs in Montana, each worth $4 billion, and that they were influencing agriculture policy, he claimed never to have heard of them.  A couple of weeks later, he was fired.  Nice job, Democrats!

I can assure you that there are millions of Americans, all former Democrats, who will never vote for a Democrat, again - no matter what sort of ogre the Republicans might run against you.  We have many alternatives - the main one being just to stay home.  And in Montana, the major Republican candidates are very respectable and well-regarded in their local communities. They will win by default. At least we will know who the bad guys are, and not have our votes for Democrats on our conscience.

--------------------

The first debate between Bullock and Hill wasn't even televised.  It was supposed to be about  "health care", with Bullock presumably defending Baucus-Obamacare.  I haven't looked for an on-line broadcast of it, or if it is archived on either MT PBS or MT public radio.  They certainly haven't been promoting it, if it was.  Why isn't it on Channel 21-5, the Helena PBS channel which covers all sorts of local government and legislative programs?  Don't tell me no one recorded it, or that it just isn't "available."  

Since the League of Women Voters quit running the debates, and third-party candidates were excluded from the national ones, it has been simply another exercise in one-party, right-wing corporate rule.  No matter that Bullock opposed Citizens United.  He lost.  He gets brownie points.  And he totally negated that by supporting, almost simultaneously, the Keystone XL pipeline.  Is it because that oil is destined for China, and Bullock is a Maoist?  It wouldn't surprise me. 

The debate between Denise Juneau and her Republican opponent (a savvy former school principal, if I heard correctly) was covered by the commercial TV news as being exceptional (with only a couple of brief clips, of course).   Is that available for public viewing?  I happen to be a fan of Denise Juneau.  She has done more as Superintendent of Public Instruction than anyone I can remember, and as the first statewide Native American elected official, she will open the doors to many others who have been traditionally excluded.  

For Republicans (and many Democrats), of course, that's the problem.  More "uppity Indians" pushing for more Federal money and protection, plus restitution and repatriation of their property which was stolen systematically by federal military and executive action.  But Juneau has opposed the Republican No Child Left Behind, while being all too willing to take their money.  She could have done much better by simply opting out of it - of course, that's a legislative decision, but she would have had a lot of support in the legislature for that.  Most Republicans in Montana are against it, too, so that would have been an opportunity  to really assert Montana's independence from federal aid and federal control over our most vital public institutions - education.  Perhaps that's a battle which is already lost (especially at the higher education level, which has become nothing but a corporate boon-doggle to socialize the costs of education while privatizing all the corporate and military-industrial "benefits" of job training, research, and otherwise serving the Corporate State).

I'm especially bitter about this because it is the Democrats in Montana who destroyed our Green Party, which had all the answers -  many  of them the same as what more progressive Democrats from the past - Metcalf, Wheeler, and Jeanette Rankin (a socialist Republican) - stood for.  The Democrat Machine in Great Falls has not only destroyed the Green Party, but me, personally.  I've been fired, blacklisted, defamed, and constantly threatened with arrest or bodily harm, while my friends and relatives, or anyone dealing with me in any way has faced the same treatment.  It is McCarthyism of the Left (except that these aren't leftists - they're corporate military-industrial police state fascists).  And the Republicans are so corrupt and brainless that they take me for a Democrat, and subject me to the same treatment.  Worse, still, they reject all dialogue and discussion, free press and local public radio, or any other source of alternative information. 

The Obama Administration has "doubled down" on the Bush-established police state.  Just like Tester, his promises to repeal the Patriot Act, end the "War on Terror," and restore the Constitution have been eliminated from the Democrat's Platform as well as the historical record.  

The Zionist Occupation Government continues to demand more wars, more military spending, and attacks on any countries which criticize or even question the Zionist world domination agenda.  And the Republicans continue to promote a one-party state as the vision of Karl Rove, who should be in prison along with a dozen or more other top Bush Administration officials.  Obama and all the Democrats in Congress except for Kucinich and Woolsey (both of whom are done, now) refused to hold hearings leading to impeachment and prosecution of these many war criminals.  They have destroyed our country, and the Obama's and Baucus's have supported them all the way.  I've been telling you for 10 years that if you want a real Democratic Party, you must get rid of Baucus  and his ilk, and especially the Wall Street and K-Street gangsters who fund and control them. 

Thank you for your time and attention.