Well, I have quite a bit of time between now and my flight at 11 AM tomorrow. Expect some posting here. I’m in Billings, Montana.
When I went to grade school here, as I learned many years later, the reason we were let out at 2:45 and not at 3:00, like Garfield School down the street, was that the nuns wanted to minimize our contact with public school kids. We did not know this, of course, but I did have the attitude that something bad was going on in that school one block away.
It was nothing of the sort. The nuns simply knew that exposure to other ideas could endanger the indoctrination process, which did not go by that name.
What I have noticed here, and in Livingston and Bozeman, is that there is no alternative to the right wing. These towns are let out at 2:45. Yes, there is Yellowstone Pubic Radio, ubiquitous in the eastern half of the state, but that’s no alternative. It’s mainstream news with better sound effects. It is only a pale copy of its right wing alternative, so mellowed down that Car Talk is its best product. Locally, I believe Joe Sample has an important role, or did (I don’t even know if he is still alive, but if not, someone else fills that slot.) I read there a connection to the Democratic Party, ergo, mainstream monotony.
For some reason, the same people are (were?) In charge of the Community Seven, the local Wayne’s World channel. When a group of people got enough money to bring in Democracy Now, Marvin Granger, then in charge of YPR offered the 6AM slot to them. It could be all that was available. I don’t know, and I don’t know where that is at now. I do know that when he was petitioned to put it on YPR, he refused, saying that the contribution base would object. Read … Democrats.
But that is how it is in a thought-controlled state, more so than the larger cities, which are no prize. In the smaller towns everyone is let out early.
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Here’s a mild look at our police state mentality: In Denver, the Occupy movement is growing, and the Democrats hold high offices in the state and city, though city is technically non-partisan. They are clamping down, and this originates from on high. This is not a joke, and some local lawyers are suing over it: If you drive by the Occupy protest and honk your horn in support, the police will pull you over and ticket you for disturbing the peace.
American freedoms of speech is an illusion. Yes, it exists in theory, and we can use it, just as I am now, but if we actually threaten power, we get hammered. Steel fist and iron glove, that’s all we have.
Piece of Mindful 