Preparing for War is Preparing for Economic Collapse

ALEC's Legacy

Why King Coal is the Anti-Christ

Preparing for war = preparing for economic collapse

And that is exactly what our leaders are doing - especially in the local economy.  It's been Armageddon for the past 20 years, at least - say,  post-NAFTA and post-repeal of Glass-Steagal - both Clinton sell-outs or "initiatives", depending on your point of view.  And thanks to Goldman, Sachs - the principal bankster which has controlled the Federal Reserve and Treasury since Rubin days - all that ruin still stands, and is being fueled further even as we speak.  

The Republicans always understood "military Keynesianism", but it was "the enemy"- what they were AGAINST, not what they wanted to promote.   What is this "military Keynesianism"?  Basically, it's the economics of perpetual war and military "preparedness" in order to "create jobs" and "promote the local economy."  And that is precisely what the local Nuclear Mafia constantly claims it is doing with Malmstrom's archaic and dangerous Doomsday Machine, designed for "Mutually Assured Destruction." 

Just what we wanted, right?  A suicide pact might have meant something in those days - 40 years ago.  It doesn't mean much, today.   I guess we're that much more willing simply to "end it all" than we were, then.  After all, these are the Last Days, right? The Rapture is at hand.

Military Keynesianism is the economics of Hitler.  In fact, his economic experts knew and read Keynes, which was unusual for Germans, whose economics was much less "free market" and "entrepreneurial" than the English - even under "Fabian socialism".   And that is what we've been doing in the US ever since WWII - accomodating ourselves to Amerika Uber Alles - "Full Spectrum Dominance" over all the other nations and peoples of the world.

A recession looms ahead?  Start another war.  Create another threat, polarizing the masses and their "representatives" to demand protection, to demand justice for women in Afghanistan, to demand "free trade" and claims on other country's resources, be they human, financial, oil, water, good farmland, or whatever.  Warfare is economics by violent means.  It must be good.  

 The myth of military necessity

It's really painful for a person with basic economic training and literacy (and I claim no more for myself) to listen to the blind rationalizations of fools, cowards, sociopathic war profiteers and other sell-outs to corporate fascism on virtually any issue you might name.  They are real "Know-Nothings" - denying the Wisdom of the Ages in order to get a few buck from the Koch's, coal, and oil lobbyists and unions.  

The one thing professional economists all agree on is the "Pigou Tax" - TAXING (not subsidizing) the externalities (damage to neighbors, the enviornment, public health, etc) from harmful activities like burning coal.  But do we see them uniting with climate scientists, historians, ecologists and others to implement a carbon tax and other taxes against various kinds of pollution and other socially-detrimental outcomes from production and trade?

No.  In fact, "Hell no".  The Kochites are not buying any of that "green garbage".  CO2 helps plants grow.  More CO2 and crops will be better.  They (the Koch -Monsanto agents) actually say that. And they've infiltrated it into the TEA's and other political action groups/caucuses, thus completely destroying the peace, justice, and sustainability values ("Parameters of Eternity") which people of faith generally maintain.  

Everyone agrees with this in the abstract.  Even (or especially) the coal companies have a vital interest in stopping what they do.  We'd all be better-off if we didn't burn irreplaceable, polluting fossil fuels.  There are known and proven strategies to make the conversion as quickly as possible, consistent with social welfare and the other economic needs and outcomes which we value.  

The best way to phase out fossil fuels is a graduated carbon tax, which if put into place 20 years ago (which the rest of the world tried to do), would have solved the problem by now.  We'd have a peaceful, nuke-free, carbon-neutral economy, with vast resources liberated to satisfy every other perceived human need and desire.  

People would be healthier, happier, more productive, more self-realized, more spiritual, more athletic, or whatever they wanted to be. But coal lobbyists and the corporations which pay them, working through ALEC and a thousand other bought and paid for "think tanks", lobbies, and outright militarized attack forces, are on the verge of destroying our country, by destroying our health, our will, our freedom to organize and communicate - even our freedom to read and listen to whatever sources please and satisfy us.  It is Orwell's 1984 squared.  It is all those horrors, mixed with Brave New World's Soma happy pills and unlimited sexual gratification.  

So, to all those "Republicans" and "Democrats" who would not be recognized by their predecessors of a century ago, I would say:  "You need to understand that your policies are killing people.  And you will be  the morally culpable parties for sowing false information and economic dependence on planet-busting technologies."   

We VOTED for you.  We EXPECT that you will do what is best for everyone, at whatever level of the pyramid you happen to be governing or "legislating" for.  

The Coal Lobby is already suffering the sulfurous coal-smoke hell for the remainder of their days. They will continue to rape, strip, and destroy our mountains and forests, spewing million of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change, raising sea levels, and resulting in the deaths and dislocations of millions of people.  

What sort of politician actually encourages and spends money to promote the coal industry?  It's been a large majority in Montana, bi-partisan, for a long time.   We heard one tonight, on Yellowstone Public Radio's "Capitol Connect" program, from Colstrip, MT.  http://ypr-pc.streamguys.net/podcast/news/150318capitol_connections.mp3  
And not one challenge or rebuttal in 15 minutes to all the outrageous lies and false claims he made.  I thought maybe they'd put something in the second half of the program from those who oppose coal development and subsidies.  No, it was a story about moving the state crime lab to Eastern Montana, where all the fracking and coal strip mining takes place.  It seems they are overrun by meth dealers and prostitutes.  I wonder why? 

It's time to give it up.  Coal is not a renewable or sustainable "resource".  In fact, it isn't a resource at all.  It's a death plague.  And it's time to go to war, not against "coal" in the abstract, but against all the coal corporations and their pocketed politicians who are barely literate, let alone wise in their use of their legislating power.  They simply don't understand, and they have no desire to do so.  And out of their ignorance, they will destroy the planet if we let them.

TEA's vs. ALEC

TEA's vs. ALEC

On "responsible Republicans..."

Here in Montana, the media (liberal or otherwise) is describing Republican legislators and their supporters as being either "responsible" or "conservative."   I questioned a reporter about that, saying that it seemed to me that "conservative" and "responsible" were the same thing - at least in the minds of the Republicans.  I would suggest a different alternative - the TEA's vs. ALEC Republicans.  

Whatever  happened to the TEA's?  (They still meet occasionally in Great Falls under the name TEA Party Patriots). The Spring primary which replaced Paul Kantor (considered a TEA), who was in line for House leadership, with a real TEA (who teaches Austrian economics on the college level) put paid to the idea that the "moderate" or "responsible" Republicans were more electable than the "conservatives", who were thought to include TEA's. Apparently, he only criteria for being "responsible" was to go along with some of the more absurd Democrat policies and programs.

Kantor's willingness to compromise on immigration policy (being "responsible") was given as the reason for his defeat.  Never mind that Obama has deported more "illegal immigrants" than any previous administration, but the fact that he is now showing some humanity towards women and children, etc. is used against him.  In fact, it was Kantor's vast complicity with the banksters and foreign policy alliance favoring American hegemony and perpetual war which defeated him.  AIPAC (American-Israel Political Action Committee), which nearly everyone in Congress follows whether they like it or not, is becoming a liability, as well - especially in a place like Montana.  All across the country, Republican voters actually prefer limited government, peace, bringing the troops home, and expanding personal freedom and opportunities - something that Republicans always promised, but hardly ever delivered.  Voters don't like the Republican Oligarchs and war-mongers any better than they liked the "Cold War Democrats" and Wall Street toadies like Max Baucus.   

With the experience of many ALEC-dominated legislative sessions behind us, I have trouble distinguishing the  "conservative" Republicans from the "responsible" ones. Some are sane and intelligent, and actually interested in improving things.  But many of those, like John Bollinger (Schweitzer's Lieutenant-Governor, and an early candidate for Max Baucus's Senate seat), changed their party affiliation to Democrat - "out of the frying pan and into the fire."  George Paul is a local example of the opposite trend - life-long Democrats changing to Republicans, based on the  failures of both parties to do anything more than "the same old thing."  And the TEA's, so much reviled by the liberal media and pundits, actually wanted smaller and less-intrusive government, peace, bringing the troops home, cutting military and Homeland Security spending, protection of individual rights under the Constitution, etc. Many of them also supported balanced budgets with sound money (Gold Standard or equivalent- maybe Bitcoins, now), Fully Informed Jury system, the right to self-medicate and chose whatever sort of health care and cures one prefers, instead of only those dictated by the State.  

That's another part of the ACA that is never discussed.  None of the proven and popular "alternative medicine" practices are covered (as they are, for example, in Germany), and if you use it, you still have to pay for the aliopathic "drugs and scalpels" system which only treats symptoms, not the causes of illness and disease. The whole "War on Drugs" could be eliminated by recognizing the basic right to self-medicate and use traditional medical treatments which the (legal) drug cartels have outlawed. 

What is ALEC?  The American Legislative Exchange Council (aka, "the Broker State") controls a third of state legislators nationwide, giving them an effective majority nearly everywhere.  Both "schools" of Republicans, if that label applies, along with "Blue Dog" Democrats (which is about all we have in Montana) seemed to follow the ALEC agenda implicitly, and nearly all Republican state legislators, for many years, actually took the ALEC "training" in how to submit their "model bills" to do such things as reduce prison overcrowding (by building more prisons), and "reform" every other government service or program either by privatizing it (often at twice the cost in overhead and rakeoffs of various kinds), or by cutting it to the bone, and relying on "private charity." Destroying the environmental movement, along with Social Security, Medicare, and any sort of universal health care not supplied by private corporations was the main purpose of ALEC all along.  

Their talk of "Jeffersonian Federalism" and "non-partisan", non-profit status is totally fictional. And every sort of dangerous, predatory corporation had a seat at the table, starting with the Prison and "Defense" industries, and including everything from the major food and drink producers (all opposed to GMO labeling, and almost any sort of environmental/food supply protection), Agri-biz like Monsanto and Cargill (who maximize their revenues on volume, not quality) to the major banks and insurance companies, retail chains - in short, anything and everything which presently thinks it  profits from war and the destruction of the planet.  

The TEA's wanted to solve the problems which Big Government was so busy creating - usually through wars, corporate welfare, and federal programs such as the ACA, No Child Left Behind, Homeland Security, etc, which all too often exacerbated and perpetuated the "problems" supposedly being addressed.  Instead of providing the  affordable, accessible health care products and services we obviously needed, the problem was defined as a "lack of insurance coverage."  Suddenly, "health insurance" became the focus of the debate, rather than actually delivering health care in a fair and efficient manner.  And it remains there, today.  It was amazing to watch Lewis and even Amanda Curtis (the two Dems in the Montana congressional campaigns) keep talking about "insurance coverage" rather than "health care."  

What the  Republicans had learned was that only people with above-average incomes want "health insurance."  This is because they have wealth and property to protect from the medical bill collectors.  We are all just a car-wreck or serious illness away from bankruptcy, and being "insured" offers some protection against that. That is what is being "insured" - their property - not their  health. All the rest of us want actual Health CARE, not some promise by a predatory corporation that they will pay part of our bills, and guarantee that we are admitted to hospitals for treatment, only to find, after the fact, that those "procedures" weren't covered. 

By "expanding insurance coverage" under the ACA (and as Obama, for once, accurately explained),  healthy, young working people are now forced to pay for those with "pre-existing conditions," the elderly, etc.  That is exactly what the ACA does, and the Democrats paid heavily for advocating such an absurd system.  All the way through, we were promised a "robust public option" - Medicare for anyone who wanted it, or who qualified by being lower income.  That would have worked, but the Democrats, led by Sen. Max Baucus, Finance Committee Chairman, wrote the legislation (for reasons which were apparent in the results - why not the "Human Services Committe" or whatever?  It was all about bailing out insurance companies, not providing health care.)  He actually had the proponents of the public option and Single Payer removed by force from his hearings.  Then, he just turned it over the insurance lobbyists, who "respectfully requested" that everyone be foreced to participate, with federal subsidies (to pay insurance premiums, not for health care) for lower income people.  

The result  is that costs continue to increase, and very little services are provided except to those who live in states with expanded Medicaid.  In Montana, you still have to be destitute and over 65 to get it, unless you have a pre-existing medical problem or disability of some sort.  By making insurance companies cover this, the burden has been put on the workers rather than the banksters and corporations who are profiting from making people sick.  

Every Montana Democrat followed Max Baucus (and Hillary Clinton before him) in serving the insurance and pharmaceutical "industries" rather than the people of the United States.  Schweitzer broke away, speaking out in favor of Single Payer (Medicare for all - and private insurance restricted to wealthy people who wanted or needed it to protect their assets), and he was elected Governor for that, but the Dem Party machine, always responsive to Finance Capitalism, rejected it and still does.   As early as President Truman or before, Dems supported some form of "socialized medicine", but the Republicans didn't. When they were still doing polls about it, at least 60% of ALL voters favored a single-payer, "Medicare for All" policy.  Instead, they pulled a "bait and switch" on us, with the Republicans adding to the confusion by calling "Obamacare" "socialized medicine."  The very process of passing the ACA and making it compulsory sunk the Democrats all by itself.  

And don't forget the legal Drug Cartels - the most profitable sector of the economy, who extort $100's of billions of dollars every year from taxpayers and consumers - a racket that far exceeds all the costs of the so-called "illegal drugs" problem - mostly the $100 billion or more attributed to the "War on Drugs" which maintains the illegal cartels and coercive marketing to a captive (poor, largely minority) market.  The human costs to the rest of us are much higher, as anyone who has been arrested for "possession of dangerous drugs" can attest.  

The ACA insured (no pun intended) that we have bad insurance plans, costing 4 times more than they should, which mainly insure that doctors and hospitals will be paid, while depriving us of the freedom and resources to actually discover and purchase the health care we really need.  The price we pay, whether as taxpayers, policy-holders, or as a percentage of national GDP, is somewhere around 4 times more than it should be.  Considering how poor the service is which most of us actually receive, it's even worse.  We have some of the worst health care statistics in the "developed world."  Cuba, for example, has far better numbers than ours (illustrated in the Michael Moore film, "Sicko"), with an expenditure that is perhaps 4% or less of their miniscule GDP, and they train thousands of doctors for other poor countries, and do a lot of international work like fighting AIDS, malaria, Ebola, etc.  

But every developed country in the world (and quite a few "underdeveloped ones") has some sort of universal health care system available to all, at low and affordable or free prices.  We can study any or all of them, and make vast improvements to our own.  This, more than anything else, is what the ACA PREVENTED.  It is not a "path to Single Payer" or anything else. Instead, it saved the rotten system we already had from any real reforms or improvements.  
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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.

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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.