Ted Brewer flaks it up

This piece, Where chemtrails and Ochenski converge, ran yesterday in the Missoulian. It is by Montana Wilderness Association communications manager Ted Brewer. It is weird.

The object of scorn is George Ochenski, a conservation writer who occasionally has pieces published in that newspaper. MWA is sliming him, even trotting out Godwin. There’s real anger behind it, though not much substance.  It’s a hit piece.

What’s up?

It’s interesting to see all of the people working for MWA on this page –  Ted is down a ways. They have mostly had their pictures taken in natural backdrops. This seeds the impression that this is an outdoor-loving group. Indeed, Montana Wilderness Association sounds like a bunch of people who hike the mountains and ski the trails, but their true function is a little less earthy. The photos and hobbies are a nice smoke screen. (Ted … “enjoy[s] hiking with their two dogs, backpacking, Nordic skiing, and fly fishing.” He also writes their hit pieces.)

The “communications manager” doesn’t just fire off an op-ed, hoping something sticks. He has to answer to his superiors. Be assured that the content and tone of this piece was table-talked. It is out for blood. They want Ochenski taken down.

If indeed that happens, it will be the juice behind MWA that does it, as MWA, just a front group, has no real power.

The word that set them off was most likely “bribes.” Ochenski never used it. It is a scarecrow argument.

They do, however, protest too much.

The real story is behind the words. MWA is an AstroTurf organization. They claim grassroots support, but real backers are a list of foundations. They have a lush budget and a large staff with important-sounding titles. They keep busy, but they don’t get much done in terms of conservation. Most often they attack real conservation groups and cooperate with developers and extraction companies. They “facilitate” and “collaborate.”

Pew Charitable Trusts has been a prominent supporter of MWA in the past. That outfit is spawned by the Sun Oil Company fortune, and the Pew family behind it.  If you think that putting money in a foundation  separates it from the donors, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Pew money is oil money. So it naturally follows: MWA is oil money.

The word “quisling” comes to mind, as MWA merely fronts for other more powerful interests. But I’ll settle for a simpler word requiring no knowledge of history. They are “phonies.” “Shills” works too.

MWA is part of the larger corruption that is our political system, where no one is what they appear to be, everyone bought. The Brewer piece is a smoke screen, flak designed to take attention off MWA and redirect it at a critic.

Forget Paris

I wanted to bring forward these words left by JC at a Reptile Dysfunction yesterday, which he brought over from Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge. It has to do with the passport left behind by one of the “suicide bombers”, the modern-day signature of the false flag event:

Now, we admit to not being experts on the nuances, or even basics, of “suicide bombing for terrorists 101”, but is bringing your own passport to an event that will be your last, really that crucial, especially when the passport is such a critical smoking gun?

Also, if a suicide bomber blows up while carrying the passport, does the passport survive intact every single time or just on specific occasions?

Just as with the passport found in the rubble of the World Trade Center, or the drivers license in the Charlie Hebdo hoax, we are asked to be credulous beyond the pale of even normal blind stupidity. And we fulfill our roles. It is discouraging.

As I sat here this morning reading (The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton), I found the words rolling over me and leaving comfort. That, to me, is a better activity than to dwell on the evil of CIA and all the other spooks who pull off these awful slaughters to advance their insane wars in blind pursuit of power. There is evil in humans, and those most capable of such perfidy as the Paris attacks advance to the front of the line. They get to kill the most people, destroy all that is good, and clink their glasses while exchanging their knowing winks at gatherings in Georgetown or London or wherever they hang out.

All they ask of us is blind stupidity. And we give it to them.

When I returned to writing here, I wanted to stay close to home, write about Montana, my home in my heart, and forget about the madness that is our world, as I cannot change it. As Dark Helmet reminded us in Spaceballs,

“Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.”

So enough about Paris. Forget Paris.
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PS: From comments below, Paul Craig Roberts: “Americans are not capable of believing truth. They have been brainwashed that truth is “conspiracy theory.” A population this stupid has no future.” (He sounds a little frustrated. I get that.)

Troubled times

American news is essentially state-sponsored propaganda, so I have long relied on other sources for news. But it is difficult to know who is honest in pursuit of truth, and who is just another liar. At this point in time I have decided to place some confidence in Moon of Alabama and Saker to guide me through the morass that is the “terrorist” attacks last night. From there will come an assortment of facts, links, and it will be up to me to use my brain to try and understand this current round of insanity.

The objective of terrorism is to create fear, and then use it to achieve greater objectives. 9/11 was, obviously, staged to justify the wars we have seen these last fourteen years, naked aggression against seven countries. Millions have died, and it ain’t over yet by any means.

French President Hollande is obviously a player in this current charade, reading his lines and already identifying a Syrian as an attacker. The timing, coming so shortly after successful routing of Western-backed terrorists in Syria by the Russians, is convenient, as Langley, Tel Aviv and London appear to be in panic mode. A cornered wolf is extremely dangerous.

Other shoes will fall all over … I suppose I should listen to Obama’s words, as there might be useful information about true objectives behind the attack in his coded language. I look to President Putin for a calm and reassuring response – the Russian government, from all appearances, has been a beacon of sanity in these troubled times.

Not so the Americans … The source of most violence in our world since 1945. It all started with a paperclip.

Insanity

We can’t know anything certain for days or weeks or months, even years, about what is taking place in Paris. However, if the media instantly solves the crimes, and if it unleashes new military aggression in Syria or other Middle Eastern targets, which is the current focus of American aggression, then be assured this is a false flag attack. The tension that is simmering with refugees caused by the American-backed terrorism in Syria is bound to boil over, and what CIA/MI6/Mossad and all the other spooks do best is create tension, then take advantage of it.

Still, it is frightening to see what the lion does when his claws are trimmed. Recent Russian action in Syria has set back ISIS, al-Nusra and al Qaeda, and has caught their American sponsors flat-footed. This might be the first response from Langley. Knowing nothing else, that would be my guess. Our leaders in Washington are clinically insane.

Montana wackiness

During my tenure in Montana, two groups drew national deadlines – the Church Universal Triumphant, which to this day owns substantial acreage in Paradise Valley near the Gardiner entrance to Yellowstone National Park, and the Freemen.

CUT I written off to human susceptibility to religious indoctrination. They were end-timers, and built shelters to protect them as the final war raged on outside. When it didn’t happen, some came to their senses.

CUT activities are far less harmful than those of television preachers who scam people out of billions annually, and legally. The bomb shelters still exist, some converted to homes. The valley is still largely intact, just as when I spent so many days driving through there with my Dad as he installed the Cecil’s Cafe sign in Gardiner. Overall, from a standpoint of effects on the landscape, I would give CUT an A-minus. The people of CUT, one-on-one, are nice, just as are Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah’s and others with weird belief systems.

An article in the Billings Gazette today recounts the 1996 Freeman standoff. At the time of their trial, I lived with my kids in a fifth floor apartment nearby. We had a laser pointer we used to amuse the cat, and my son went out on the balcony one night and shined it below. We very shortly had a knock on the door. A friendly policeman confiscated the toy. The trial was going on in a barricaded Federal Building, and the red dot from a high building was rather frightening to the officers below.

Oops.

I expected to find something in the Gazette story I’ve become accustomed to – and was not disappointed.

What propelled this cadre of rural extremists into world headlines began March 25, 1996, when undercover FBI agents lured [Leroy] Schweitzer, Daniel E. Peterson Jr. and Lavon T. Hanson from the compound and arrested them.

The compound was surrounded by 100 FBI agents. That’s strange, just like over fifty FBI agents being immediately on the scene of Dorothy Hunt’s plane crash in Chicago in 1972.  They must have flown them in for the occasion. There aren’t that many agents in the whole state.

A nationally publicized siege ensued. The standoff lasted until June 13, 1996, when the men in the compound surrendered.

How do such small-minded and low-information men as the Freemen manage to create such a kerfuffle? The answer might lie in the word “undercover” FBI agents. We know now that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was shepherded to its conclusion by FBI agents. They claim a screw-up in that real explosives where used, but that is barely plausible. It was a provocation, just as with Operation Gladio, which saw bombings and killings of hundreds of civilian in Europe during the 1970’s – done by CIA and NATO agents.

The purpose: A strategy of tension. Fascists are never voted into power. They are always a small and unpopular minority, but when people are frightened, they invite them in. I doubt we’ll ever see an investigation, but I have a hunch that the “Freeman”, a loose-knit group of low-IQ losers carrying around copies of None Dare Call It Conspiracy and Atlas Shrugged, were spurred on by undercover agents.

So common is this type of underground FBI and CIA activity that I presume that all of the major scary events of our times originate in those agencies. (It’s also documented – sometime look up at a non-Wikipedia source “Cointelpro” and “Operation Chaos”) It is done to keep us in constant tension so that we seek protection and allow government to take away liberties and start wars. Other events of that time, “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and Ruby Ridge, are equally suspicious.

The Gazette story by Lorna Thackeray is a standard journalistic treatment of the events of that time, recounting the known, and never probing underneath. It is the job of American journalists not to know things, not to ask the right questions. They are very good at their jobs.

A primer on environmental lawsuits

Years ago I was granted an interview with a prominent Republican state senator in Montana for my little public access TV show. I won’t mention his name because I was surprised at his lack of depth. I expected a clever and perhaps even thoughtful man, and instead was confronted with a non-thinking reactionary.

One of his attitudes that surprised me was a belief that environmentalists conspire and plan lawsuits for the sole purpose of thwarting logging sales.  The objective, in his mind, was merely to be obstructionist. He viewed them as a scheming group of malcontents with nothing better to do than throw lawsuits at the wall, hoping some might stick.

I ran into this attitude again yesterday in the comments at another website where Big Swede offered the following in response to a satiric piece on the attitudes of Montana’s congressional delegation, Zinke, Tester and Daines, towards the timber industry and Wall Street*:

In related news Senator Tester introduced legislation for environment groups to post bonds when protesting timber sales over environment concerns. [/satire]

Anyone with understanding of the court system knows that frivolous activities are not tolerated, are in fact punished. Anyone familiar with environmental groups knows that they lack the one thing that their opponents have in glorious abundance: Cash.

Consequently, environmentalists have to be selective in challenging industry, limiting their efforts to low-hanging fruit. That would be cases where laws are flagrantly violated by the agencies and timber companies. They often win in those cases, which the logging companies and captive agencies find infuriating.

The industry response has been predictable: To use their sock puppets in congress to pass laws that bypass citizen challenges in the courts, and to use public relations to demonize environmentalists in the public mind.
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* Quoting JC: “Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Tester held listening sessions with forestry corporate CEOs on Wall Street last summer…” hilarious!

The meaning of Obama’s Keystone decision

“President Obama’s decision to deny approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline is wrong and bad for Montana. The jobs*, economic benefit, and energy security the pipeline would afford Montana — especially eastern Montana — are now lost due to the dysfunction that has come to define Washington D.C.” (Montana Governor Steve Bullock reacting to the decision not to build the Keystone Pipeline.)

Since we do not have representative government, the decision to suspend the Keystone Pipeline was not Obama’s to make. Other factors must have forced his hand. What might those factors be?

Oil prices are likely to remain low over the next five years because of plentiful supply and falling demand in developed countries, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday in its annual forecast.

The Paris-based body, which advises developed countries on energy policy, says it expects oil prices to return to $80 per barrel in 2020, with further increases after that.

Oil prices are down more than 50 percent since the middle of last year. On Tuesday, the U.S. crude oil contract was trading at $43.95 a barrel. (ABC News: Oil Prices Forecast to Stay Low Until 2020.)

There isn’t much more to think about, in my view. When oil prices return to higher levels, the pipeline will be built.
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*In politician-speak, “jobs” means “profits.” If Bullock were speaking in private to his financial backers, he would use the word profits. In public he speaks in code, as he must.

The problem of bison

I read one source years ago suggesting that the primary control mechanism of bison was the human population on this continent, as many as eighteen million at the arrival of the Europeans. Thus followed a human die-off, and the bison population exploded. Migrating settlers were confronted with millions upon millions of the beasts. The slaughter of that era had two purposes – to open range for cattle, and deprive natives of their primary food source. Both succeeded.

BisonIn the real power structure, the Montana Stockgrowers Association is the group that makes and enforces policy regarding bison in Montana. The Montana Department of Livestock holds titular authority, and underneath that is the governor, charged with grabbing a baton and leading the parade after it is moving.

In the early 1990’s, the Governor or Montana was Stan Stephens, and during his administration Montana became a nationwide laughing stock. The Yellowstone bison herd had overgrown and had to be culled. To do so, Stockgrowers invited a public harvest. The nation was shown images of “hunters” dressed in hunting garb standing fifty feet away from their trucks and prey and dropping them. It was disgusting to watch.

The next governor, Marc Racicot, had better advice. He built a wall, and did the slaughter away from cameras. No images, no outcry, no problem.

I was a writer for Writers in the West at that time, and reacting to the buffoons masquerading as hunters, wrote a column describing the cat-and-mouse game played by Racicot. I was ego-boosted when a friend of my daughter’s, in school in Wisconsin, said my WITW piece was a subject of discussion in one of her classes.

At issue are brucellosis, wolves, the real power structure, and the real effect of absence of apex predator on the landscape. Once it was humans. Now we rely on wolves and grizzly bears.

Brucellosis is a disease that causes abortion in elk and bison, and undulant fever in humans. It is under control in our cattle population, but the mere threat of species transmigration is enough to affect markets and cause quarantine. So the Stockgrowers watch it closely. Even the perception of threat to cattle will cause them to bring out the big guns. I get this, and given the unbridled power of the MSA, not much can be done to stop them.

There is not enough predation in Yellowstone national park to keep the bison herd down to a reasonable number. Wolves are great hunters, grizzlies less so, but in bison they both meet their match. Wolves prefer elk, and bears the carrion created by wolves. As a result, the bison population in Yellowstone regularly gets out of hand. Three methods of control are die-offs, migration, and culling.

Culling by humans is not allowed in the park. When food supply wanes, bison migrate into the greater ecosystem, and the Stockgrowers spring into action. These days, the killing is done out of sight, and the meat carted off to Native American reservations.

I do not know of a better solution. The effects of bison overpopulation on the landscape are devastating. Perhaps we could invite our Native American friends in each year to enjoy a harvest, as their ancestors did.

But culling is essential. There is no way around it. Nature is out of balance. Human management is essential. In my view. I invite others to set me straight.

Deep politics

imagePlease understand, before you read this, that all of us can be fooled, are fooled, and are wont to admit it. I am not disparaging the ordinary busy distracted voter. I am one of that group, except for the “voter” part.
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The operating principle “look here, not there” is widely used in politics to keep both casual and interested observers off a scent trail. Distraction is the essence of American politics.

Here’s an example: have you ever heard of the Koch brothers? Of course you have. I imagine sometimes that they giggle and laugh (and click their champagne glasses) as they send the progressive beehive into a tizzy by a mere press release or public statement. They are a focal point in politics.

Why do we even know their names? Real power does not show itself or tip its hand. The name “Koch” is easily pronounced “cock” among self-professed clever people. They are out in the open, easily reviled and ridiculed. Meanwhile, real power, always at work, is busy in other ways.

Here’s another example: The “Tea Party,” less and less emphasized as the Obama reign winds down, served a far different purpose than people imagine. It appeared out of nowhere and (by power of suggestion) became a force in Republican politics. It served both as a distraction and for perception management purposes.

The beneficiary: President Barack Obama. The guy is anything but the liberal, community organizer, and legal scholar sold to us in 2008. (I am not disparaging his real abilities, which are impressive.)

The Tea Party is comprised of right-wing stooges who were followed around by Fox News.  They held up stupid signs and yelled from the galleries. In the meantime, Obama moved forward with the what is referred to as the “Bush” Agenda, as if.

The result: Opposition from the far right solidified the notion that Obama was a liberal, progressive, even a socialist. The enemy of our enemy must be our friend. (I listen to Rush Limbaugh on occasion. He still hits hard on the notion that Obama is a leftist. This is the same principle.)

Obama has had a “successful” presidency, fooling both his own and the Republican Party followers alike.

Members of the Tea Party, at least the rank and file, are no more aware of this manipulation than the pwoggies who go ga-ga at mention of the Koch brothers.**

I first became aware of the real scent trail behind Obama when a Columbia University professor, Henry Graff, said that neither he nor any of his fellow professors were aware of any “Barack Obama” at Columbia at any time when he supposedly attended. I began to understand why his college records are sealed from view, why ghost-written best-selling autobiographical books magically appear to wide acclaim, and why a so-so speech in 2004 alerts the public that The One is on the horizon.

Obama is smart, cagey, secretive, and has a mysterious past. I don’t care about his place of birth – that too is distraction. The question is, where was he when he was not where he said he was?

The Tea Party forgot to ask that question. It’s too late now, of course, but an answer is emerging: Obama is an intelligence asset. He would be the fourth in my lifetime to serve as president.

Trust me, two of those four are not named Ronald or Dubya.
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*Obama was suggested to us in 2004 as having presidential timbre after a so-so speech at the Democratic convention. It is interesting that both Obama and the Tea Party took off due to the suggestibility of the electorate.
**I maintain that ISIS is an American invention, CIA all the way. Members of that group, disaffected Arabs bombed into seething reactionary posture by the American wars of their youth, are also unwitting pawns. True believers make the best possible pawns.

Some good reporting

Some Jungian archetypes simply don’t stand up under scrutiny. The Muslim terrorist, brought to center stage life on 9/11 and used ever since to frighten the Ameircan public, does not.

ISIS does not. But we are fortunate to live in a land possessed of a mainstream media that does not do scrutiny.

This link, supplied by SK in a post below, is well worth anyone’s time. ISIS melts before our eyes, like an ice cube in the sun.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43085.htm