ON INTELLECTUAL HONESTY - ENDING "THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM OF DENIAL AND BLAME"

ON INTELLECTUAL HONESTY - ENDING "THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM OF DENIAL AND BLAME"

We can't say it too many times: Democracy requires free, independent, locally-owned and controlled media, including newspapers, TV & radio, and the internet. Without the correct information and free and open discussion of all issues, and free elections (not fueled by lies and corporate money), democracy (not to mention free markets) aren't possible. And so long as we have independent media and free elections, no fraudulent, abusive, exploitative, tyrannical government can ever be established.

But who cares about that? - says the "conservative", mainstream American. I'm about to lose my home. My stocks have tanked. My kids are addicted to school-supplied drugs, credit cards, and "sexting" on camera cell phones. They don't read, write, or listen, and have no interest whatsoever in voting or supporting good government. I've been fired and blacklisted, and my job exported to Mexico or China. Terrorists lurk around every corner, "hating us for our freedom." Government is the problem, not the solution. The rich get richer and the poor, poorer. What do I care about Democracy?

We have often written about the collapse of rational, fair, and honest political discourse. Just about every issue discussed in political campaigns, in the legislature, Congress, and local councils and commissions, seems to be contaminated by all sorts of political posturing and infighting, personal grudges, and ancient conflicts of all kinds. Everything is controlled by corporate interests, and the power of money and the corporate media. And so, the real issues are distorted, elided, or buried under a cascade of intentionally false and misleading rhetoric and information. Our "two party system" (a recent "invention" nowhere even suggested in the Constitution as a system which we ought to have) has become, instead, "the two-party system of denial and blame."

It is the rarest of the rare occurrences when any good and honest candidate is elected, and even rarer that these few elected officials should have any effect whatsoever in determining the correct public policies through legislation or court decisions. They are immediately bought, coerced, or blackmailed into following the dictates of whatever gang happens to be in control. To resist means that their friends, families, and supporters will be punished, fired, blacklisted, etc., and if that doesn't work, they can expect to be set up, arrested, stung, scandalized, discredited and otherwise removed from public office or other leadership positions.

Thus, "The USA Patriot Act" is about eliminating the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. The "Defense of Marriage Act" is about outlawing marriages among a particular religious and cultural minority. The "Clear Skies Act" is about eliminating restrictions on deadly air pollution. And the entire "War on Terrorism" is, in fact, a program for the United States to bomb, invade, occupy, and plunder any country which can falsely be blamed for the actions of a handful of religious zealots, who were actually opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia.

The coal-fired "Highwood Generating Station" outside Great Falls is another case in point. There was never any reason whatsoever to favor or promote this project, except to enrich the Urquhart family, and to provide John Lawton and Randy Gray with retirement jobs. The reason given was to "replace" the generating assets and hydropower stolen from Montana by PPL, in the guise of "de-regulation" which the Democrats still attempt to blame on Republicans and "free market ideology." IN fact, many leading Democrats including Sen. Baucus and most of the Great Falls and Butte delegations supported this as well, and now Gov. Schweitzer is the main cheerleader for "clean coal" development, synfuels, and even processing the very dirty and uneconomic shale oil (bitumen) from Canada.

When the "Highwood Station" was first proposed as "Resource 89" back in about 1980 by the Montana Power Company, everyone agreed it was a bad idea - especially the Urquhart's. The unnecessary Colstrip project had faced huge opposition from farmers, ranchers, environmentalists and others, resulting in the Major Facilities Siting Act and the formation of the Northern Plains Resource Council and other groups to oppose it. Towering, ugly, dangerous high-voltage transmission lines were built to Seattle, which acquired an interest in Colstrip, but the costs and inefficiencies of making Montana into a "resource colony" were soon apparent, and future projects of this kind were indefinitely put on hold.

As things now stand, more than half of the electricity generated in Montana is exported to other states and Canada. And since there are tremendous environmental, economic, and social costs associated with this electricity generation and transmission (nearly all of it owned by out-of-state corporations, and paying some of the lowest local taxes in the country - when we can get them to pay at all), it has never been popular with local citizens. Wind power may be different, and we fully support that (including foreign ownership and export of the energy produced) as part of the transition to a sustainable, carbon-free economy. But that requires closing down existing coal-fired power plants, not putting them into the rate-base, and certainly not building any new ones.

But the coal companies and "investor-owned" utilities continue to exert an almost irresistible influence on state legislatures, Congress, and now, the Great Falls City (and Cascade County) Commissioners. And because of the way the issue has been dishonestly "framed" in terms of "jobs" (some 60 permanent jobs for an "investment of nearly a billion dollars - with no mention of how many jobs other investments of the same magnitude would yield) and "tax base" (most of which will be used to finance the necessary infrastructure to support the plant), our local governments continue to support these projects despite the overwhelming scientific, engineering, demographic and financial analysis which shows them to be extremely harmful and destructive of the local economy, government, business, tourism, public health, and environmental quality.

It is not an exaggeration to say that more than 99% of weighted evidence and other data demands an immediate halt to the construction of the Highwood Station, a revocation of all its permits, financing, and agreements with the City of Great Falls, and even (some are now insisting) criminal prosecution of Randy Gray, John Lawton, Colleen Balzarini, Tim Gregori, Ollie Stimac, and those City and County commissioners who have blindly and wilfully promoted this assault on public decency and common sense - in spite of the best advice and counsel by the wisest and most respected civic leaders.

We can only conclude that this has been a vast and coordinated conspiracy to defraud and injure the people of Great Falls and Cascade County. And it has (so far) been carried out with impunity. The Bush-Cheney Coal Junta has been voted out of office.

The new Obama Administration claims to want to break the hold of the coal and oil monopolies on our national government. If true, that would be a laudable goal, and we should support the same agenda for the upcoming Montana legislature. I would expect the new Congress to immediately pass a moratorium on the construction of any additional coal-fired power plants, including those already permitted and under construction. Indeed, this policy is already widely supported throughout the world, and we would become even more of a rogue, outlaw nation subject to all sorts of trade and other sanctions if we refuse to follow this international consensus.

For existing coal-fired power plants, we can expect with near certainty that their CO2 emissions and other pollutants will be taxed so heavily that it will be in the best interests of whomever owns them to shut them down as soon as possible. Electricity generated by coal will be 2-4 times more expensive than the alternatives (a claim I have often made in the Montana Green Bulletin and in public testimony.)

This is the context which we, as Greens, have understood and tried to communicate to the American people since well before the Kyoto Accords of the early 1990's. Al Gore and a few Democrats (and Republicans) also understand the issue, and that we would have to quit burning coal as well as our limited and precious petroleum reserves, and make the transition with all deliberate speed to a hydrogen economy fueled entirely by solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydro, and various ocean-based energy generation systems. But nothing like this will happen so long as local communities continue to support projects like the HGS, and our representatives continue to bail out and support the existing corporate monopolies.

We should have started this program for a clean, renewable energy economy in the late 1970's, when President Carter first proposed it. The facts of global warming and the effects of further fossil fuel consumption were already known by the early 1980's. Instead of that, the gangster-capitalists of the oil and coal monopolies have suppressed the science, cut off and taken over the public information sources and networks, and bribed and coerced Congress and our state legislators and local officials to keep expanding the use of coal and other fossil fuels.

By what incredible stupidity and malfeasance do our locally-elected officials, co-op managers, and courts of justice continue to deny and subvert our local economy and environment? They well might answer: "This is the way it's always been - since Anaconda ruled the state, controlled the press and the legislature, and punished anyone who opposed corporate rule." So, if we've always lived under fascism, slavery, and oppression, that means we should continue doing so, now? What if we would prefer not to?

Neither local Republicans nor Democrats have the fortitude and political integrity oppose this folly. It's time for everyone to become Greens. In fact, it's far too late, already. We may have no alternatives, by now, to a military dictatorship, and policy decisions made by a scientific, technocratic elite. They, at least, are not entirely driven by corporate greed and a passive-aggressive, "denial and blame" mentality.

There is only one political party which understands this issue, and has the correct policies to combat global warming, establish world peace, provide free, universal healthcare, education, and a decent quality of life for all. It is called the Green Party. There is one here and you can join it at http://www.mtgreens.org There are no bosses; there is no party hierarchy. Grass roots democracy is one of our "10 Key Values."

GREEN PAGES: National newspaper of the Green Party of the United States http://greenpages.wordpress.com/

For an introduction to Green Party philosophy and programs, go to http://www.gp.org/platform