Sunday Morning on Montana PBS and Public Radio

Our Leaders Speak

Coal, Keystone Pipeline, Minutemen, Health care, and other minor issues...

I'd just about given up on Sunday Morning public radio & TV - endless interviews with military "consultants", advocates of "insurance marketplaces", the glories of industrial manufacturing to support the Tar Sands project - Montana is the place for this, now, Gov. Bullock touting "resource development" (he supports the XL Pipeline as well as expanded coal exports, in accordance with his mentor, Max Baucus), the Early Education initiative, but no mention of the fact that probably 20% of these kids will be found to need medication for depression, violent "acting out" following their cartoon teachers, as well as skyrocketing rates of autism and other mental development problems resulting from coal-fired mercury and lead poisoning.  But, hey, it's all provided by the Federal CHIP program - more of that federal bounty we keep hearing about which we poor Montanans could not do without.  

Now, I'm watching the Civics Roundtable or whatever they call it on the main MT-PBS channel.  (It is produced in Helena, and they run a lot more similar material - especially international education - on the Helena channel - 21-5 in Great Falls.)  And yes, we desperately need a local channel like this for Great Falls.  

The topic was Federalism, with Judge Nelson (who is relatively sane) and someone from UM, I think.  Then, with Pat Williams, they got into the issue of the old (ancient) "Liberty Amendment" - return all federally-owned land back to the states.  It was also called "The Sagebrush Rebellion", and typifies Southwestern politics especially - Nevada, Texas, and Arizona (New Mexico has maintained its character as the first European settlement in what is now the United States.), as well as Southern California, and in many respects, Utah and Colorado, as well.  Montana often stands apart (or did, when we had real "statesmen" like Lee Metcalf or Williams), but we seem to be running out of people who forcefully speak the truth.  It's the blatant lying and manipulating information for political (and more often, financial) purposes which has to stop.  It's killing us - the planet - human destiny, God's Creation - call it what you will.  

Pat's been saying the same things all along, and I believe he is sincere, as well as being a compassionate and public-spirited Congressman.  He basically led the "arts and education" caucus.  Soon after he retired, I heard him speak and say that when he went to  Congress, he wasn't an environmentalist.  But by God, he was one now!   Unfortunately, that seems to be the only way that major Democrats can come out for the environment - there's no way they can speak out until they've retired, and even then, they have to be very careful.   

Pat has always defended the Federal government, and its control over funding, taxes, etc.  Rather disingenuously, this argument usually includes the statistic that we Montanans get back $1.67 for every dollar we pay in taxes.  And don't forget the Malmstrom Bounty - land-based nuclear-armed missiles (like what nearly set off WWIII over Cuba in 1962) which "makes up 40% of the local economy".   Don't you feel more secure, already?  Both parties are completely dedicated to maintaining this "Doomsday Machine", built during the Cold War, and if the Cold War ended, well, hey, we can start another one to make sure that Malmstrom and its "mission" is protected.  The missiles don't protect us.  It's up to us to protect the missiles.  Seriously, that's what they say.  

This is the legacy of Baucus (and even Mansfield) and their "leadership" of important committees and thus able to really "serve" whatever "friends" they might have had.   I don't know if there is any "bad blood" between Williams and Baucus, but there probably should be, because they had a very different view of what their job was.  An Education degree (Pat taught 6th grade) vs. a Law (and economics!) degree, in the case of Baucus.  Stanford.   

As for the Federal land grab, I've publicly supported a plan for at least 20 years (and I didn't invent it) of simply returning all federal and state land (aside from what is now being actively used or managed constructively) back to the Indian tribes - not to "own" and exploit, but to nurture and care for, and use for sustainable living for their people and whomever they want to join them.   In the maps that were shown about the federal "footprint" in the Western states, I noticed something suspicious.  They call the Indian reservations "federal" land!  And, they show up as red blocks on the map.  

So, all the Red areas is what would be returned to Native American control and utilization, subject to some general rules against mining, commercial logging, and oil development by major companies who support ALEC and other anti-environment organizations.   There is a war against coal, and coal has been winning.  Why, I cannot begin to fathom.  Not only are there Coal State Democrats.  There are Coal State Indians, as well.  

Anyone with any scientific training can easily do the math.  We are heading in the wrong direction at an accelerating rate.  Most of public policy (as shaped by "the media" and paid propagandists) simply makes things worse - further binds and restricts people's voluntary associations and trade, upon which our economy rests, and actually blocks and degrades widespread awareness about the seriousness of the present ecologic crisis.  

Thus, our "public" institutions have been co-opted to diminish and destroy us.  By focusing on the window-dressing of "democracy," they completely ignore the deeper principles of Nature and an ethics of cooperation and sustainability, not punishment and blame.  And we must better recognize and support personal sovereignty, voluntary association for any peaceful purpose, and a system of established rules enforced in a fair and constructive (as opposed to punitive) manner, rather  than the unseemly posturing and pork-brokering seen in the Legislature and Congress.  The idea that these people are "law-makers" is truly frightening.    

As things stand now, we can't  even agree on a "mission statement".  There are fierce arguments between "cap and trade" schemes (favored by banksters, the Enro-style trading companies, etc.) and simple carbon taxes which would have started low in the mid-90's and now been up to $150/tonne, resulting in the speedy end to the coal industry - something they've (rightly) claimed we wanted all along.  

The Democrats simply don't have any sort of coherent energy policy.  "All of the above" is "the best they can do."  The Republicans have one - destroy and if necessary, lock up the environmentalists, and portray them as "terrorists." 

Carbon taxes for motor fuel should be much higher, even than $150/tonne (about $1/gallon), due to the total "carbon footprint" which this whole system creates - individual large, powerful cars running on a massive grid of highways which  typically covers 1/5 of a city's total land area.  Somebody needs to plead this in a court of law - by what possible justification do the auto and oil companies, by their manipulation of public policy, hasten our transition to poverty and barbarism?  Is it the "fashion value" of cars?  I guess so.  

Another good case in point is health care.  It's a very simple, basic service upon which our urban civilization relies:  if we get sick, or get in an accident, we must be helped and taken care of as well as public resources allow.  (We already spend more than enough in tax dollars on the existing system to support really good and efficient ones - there are dozens of models in other countries which can be easily adapted to our needs).  We must be allowed to self-medicate and use alternative treatments of whatever kind.  That is a basic right of free persons.  And we can assist in family member's care, learn First Aid and healthy lifestyles, and spread the burdens (and jobs) around so that no one is bankrupted by accident or illness.  The expropriation of health by a few big insurance and drug companies is unconscionable.  

As for the "medical profession," itself, I can only express my condolences.  There are many good people working there, and making huge sacrifices for the good of humanity and the communities which support them.  But as a political lobby, it has been disastrous.  It's like there's no ethics - not even the self-serving Hippocratic Oath, which proscribes most of what is common practice nowadays.  Physicians, as a class, are the highest-paid of any.   And they EXPECT to get out of Med School and start making up to $400K/year!  For what?   Their "expertise"?  They have none.  To support their vast overhead, and the myriad "jobs" resulting from a system of third-party billing and unregulated prices which is a recipe for disaster, as well as mass bankruptcy.  We are just beginning to see how "for-profit" medicine responds to a real health care crisis like Ebola.

What were they thinking?  In what Satanic mind was our present system conceived?  (Answer:  The Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney.)  We are in the era of "Finance Capitalism."  Everything is owned and controlled by banks, insurance companies, and other financial entities.  This is a real form of Capitalism, unlike the "laissez-faire" or "free-market" capitalism, which is simply an oxymoron or contradiction-in-terms.  Capitalism is all about the 1%, with money being equivalent to power and success in politics.  It has nothing to do with "freedom" or "individual rights."  Corporations have been "humanized" to make them equal - or even superior - to real flesh and blood citizens and voters.  

Now, I'm watching Moyers & Company with a guest (Robinson) who explains much of this.  We're simply not having "adult discussions" about our problems.  Instead, it's like a third-grade level of drugged children, hurling insults at one another and seeing nothing beyond our own urges and prejudices.  (She didn't say that, but it was a lament for the deplorable condition of our public discourse, which I'm also describing, here).  

How can we spend an average of 4 times more, per capita, on "health care" (considered qualitatively - ours has the worst stats, too) and simply NOT provide basic care, vision, dental - "full Medicaid" to every last citizen?   Believe me, a market will spring up to serve these people.  They needn't fear not being able to find a doctor or facility to care for them, with the generous remittances we will allow - say, half of what they are, today, which doctors complain about so bitterly...   Send  them to Cuba for a refresher course about what medicine is supposed to be.