Month: March 2021

by Travis Mateer

I’m glad partisans have the insurrection to focus on because without this emotional touchstone they might have to deal with awkward realities, like how Joe Biden hasn’t had a formal press conference in over 45 days.

The lack of access for legacy media has gotten so maddening, the Washington Post wrote an op-ed about it, stating stuff like this:

Mr. Biden has been in office for 46 days. It was only after journalists’ complaints became increasingly loud — and following a wave of bad press — that Ms. Psaki announced Friday that the president would appear for an extended, unaccompanied question-and-answer session with reporters.

Over the last few days, Biden’s appearances have been cut short, seemingly just as he’s getting ready to answer questions. What are his handlers so afraid of?

To deflect from the optics of a cognitively impaired old man who seems to struggle with things like knowing where he is and what he’s doing, partisans like Don Pogreba are getting all the mileage they possible can from January 6th, including this deceitful depiction, which starts with the title, Two Months After an Armed Insurrection is a Bad Time to Print Matt Rosendale’s Conspiracist Lies about Elections. From the link:

How long does it take to forgive a politician for stoking the flames of insurrection to such a fever pitch that an armed mob literally stormed through the most important halls of our democracy and killed police officers defending it? For Montana newspapers, when it comes to Republicans, about two months, give or take.

This paragraph features NO links to the sources Pogreba is using to back up his claims that multiple police officers were killed as a result of the crowd breaching security at the Capitol building. Gee, why do you think that is?

The fear-spell of the insurrection won’t last forever. Eventually partisans will need a new fear-spell event to distract their base from the senile old man they forced into viability for the presidency. I’m sure these clever manipulators will provide some new tasty morsel for the agitated populace to chew on.

by Travis Mateer

This week’s episode of Zoom Town is a conversation about art and censorship with co-host Tim Adams. After recording the conversation yesterday I got a book I’ve been waiting for in the mail, called Dispelling Wetiko, by Paul Levy. When I woke up at 2am this morning, unable to sleep, I started reading.

Here is an excerpt from the first chapter about the role of the artist:

When I use the term “artist,” I am not using it in a traditional, limited way of meaning someone who is solely painting, drawing, or using some other particularized medium; this is too circumscribed and flatland of a conception of what an artist is. When I use the term “artist” I am alluding to the fact that we are all creative, mulitdimensional visionary artists and dreamers whose canvas is life itself. Art is not just an activity that results in products but, rather, is a way of being and mediating experience. The very act of verbally or nonverbally language-ing our experience, of giving creative shape and form to what is happening both inside and outside of ourselves is itself the process through which we, as artists, deepen our realization of what we are trying to express. The fact that our realization of what we are expressing deepens through the act of creatively expressing it is the litmus test which certifies our act of creation to be worthy of the name “art.” In creating a new form of communication, the work of art is both an expression of a more expanded consciousness, as well as being its initiator. Art attains its greatest numinosity and ability to affect others when the creator of the work of art is re-creating themselves and being transformed in and through the act of creating the work of art. The artwork then becomes a living testament to, encoded with, and a carrier of this experience of transformation, as if the work of art unlocks the door through which this transformation becomes activated in and transferred to others in an act of living transmission. The artist’s creative endeavors are timeless artifacts, which act like transducers of the semantic, symbolic power encoded in the human psyche. Contagious in its effects, art can “virally”spread via the unconscious of our species in a way which liberates and unleashes the latent, creative energy lying dormant in the unconscious of humanity, which has the power to effect real change in the world. Ultimately speaking, the real purpose of art is not merely to momentarily express ourselves so as to make us feel better, but to awaken us and make us free.

At the end of this week’s episode I have included a special treat: an original recording I’m calling SKINK DOES SEUSS.

Enjoy!

by Travis Mateer

When you work with people in the messy realm of human services you become familiar with certain dynamics, like codependent relationships. Here is a little snapshot of how a codependent relationship functions:

Codependents become a rescuer for their loved one and, in making excuses for them, they do not allow any consequences to take place which may otherwise change the inappropriate behavior. This can be seen in abusive relationships, such as when the abused individual makes excuses for their abuser, or when a parent makes excuses for an out of control child.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to apply this concept of codependency to politics. In fact, thanks to the recent actions of Democrat Jon Tester, we get to see how a partisan caught in an abusive relationship with Tester exhibits signs of codependency, like making excuses for their beloved politician in order to not allow the consequences of being a sellout to change the behavior.

The two most recent examples of sellout behavior from Tester is his vote to help kill a $15 dollar minimum wage and his support, along with Republican Steve Daines, to reauthorize the Keystone XL pipeline.

To help shield Tester from the ideological blowback, here is partisan-rescuer Don Pogreba exemplifying how codependency keeps one locked in a toxic relationship:

We can respond to Tester’s vote against a dead-on-arrival minimum wage hike in a couple of ways. We can gain the self-satisfaction of proclaiming our refusal to ever support him again, or we can work to persuade him that he should be fighting for a substantial hike in the minimum wage as soon as possible. I know some will take Tester’s vote as a sign that there is no difference between the two parties, but, given that one party literally just voted unanimously that Americans don’t need expanded unemployment benefits or any direct support as the pandemic drags on, that’s little more than willful ignorance.

First, Pogreba rationalizes the bad behavior of voting against a minimum wage increase by explaining the politics of posturing. Then Pogreba preemptively frames the predictable outrage as “self-satisfaction” so that anyone with enough self-respect to call out the behavior can be made to look selfish. Then, to cap off the excuse making, Pogreba throws in a little example of how the REAL abusive Republican party rolls in order to distract from his own abusive party’s calculating behavior.

For people stuck in toxic relationships, here are some things one can do to start healing:

Those in a codependent relationship must learn to recognize their own needs, establish appropriate boundaries, and learn how to say “no” to their loved one when necessary. A lot of self-exploration is needed to look at the system that has established itself within your family and how it is affecting you as an individual and your relationship with your loved one.

Just replace the word “family” with “party” and I think you have a pretty solid analogy for what’s going on with a partisan enabler like Don Pogreba.

I woke up to the toxic power relationship Tester has with his own party years ago and because of that awakening I haven’t voted for him since 2006. Here is me modeling non-codependent behavior in 2015 when Tester blatantly lied about logging litigation.

Jon Tester continues abusing the ideological aspirations of his constituents because gatekeeping codependents like Don Pogreba can’t do the difficult self-exploration required to break the cycle of enabling and excuse-making.

If codependents don’t grow a backbone and start setting some boundaries, then abusers have no reason to change. I think the 15 year relationship between Senator Tester and Partisan Pogreba exemplifies that dynamic and the need for a different approach.

by Travis Mateer

Last December a retired teacher by the name of David James helped Montana Democrats set up their sedition narrative. Thanks to the online “news” outlet, the Missoula Current, David James had shit like this to say:

It is obvious the Trump party doesn’t believe what is best for all Americans–just their Americans. Not about what democracy means and the power of the vote. Now that the vote has been certified; any further attempt to overturn this vote is sedition. 126 Republican representatives and 17 Attorneys Generals, like Montana’s Tim Fox, Greg Gianforte, and Steve Daines that want to overturn the will of the American people will be judged harshly.

When do calls to overturn a popular election in American democracy become a crime of sedition? Or, when Trump declares martial law as he has suggested, will true conservatives, American patriots, finally take their party back?

These words were published on December 31st, 2020. Exactly one week later, a minuscule segment of the immense crowd that turned out in support of Trump were ushered into the Capitol for a photo-op that became the alleged ARMED INSURRECTION (with a conspicuous lack of firearms).

The Capitol event on January 6th has been a magical gift for Democrats that just keeps giving. To back up this notion, David James has returned to the virtual pages of the Missoula Current with another piece of shit opinion piece that features propaganda like this:

If organizing a coup of our government isn’t a reason to convict a president, nothing is. The vote to not convict made those who were called upon to decide–complicit. People such as Montana’s Senator Steve Daines and 42 other Republicans demonstrated spineless courage because they couldn’t possibly tell their constituents the truth. They were afraid of the people they misled.

They owed their allegiance not to America and our Constitution, but to Donald Trump and his followers because of the lies they told. The election was fair. They knew it. But there is also an unfairness about a group of elites filling voters with lies about a stolen election, milking them for millions of donations because they are fighting to “save” the country, and then denying any responsibility while those who raided the capitol are hauled off to jail.

But, because of their cowardice and no penalty for this treason, it is likely to happen again.

There is so much wrong with James’ heaping pile that I’m not sure where to begin. Should I begin with the oxymoronic term “spineless courage”, or should I ask what evidence exists that Trump ORGANIZED A COUP?

It doesn’t matter what I do because the competing narratives have solidified in the minds of most Americans. Half the country is invested in the failed coup narrative, while the other half thinks the election was stolen.

While I try to have some sympathy for victims of propaganda, I have ZERO SYMPATHY for a peddler of propaganda like David James, who strings together his scary fantasy narrative to amplify political divides for partisan effect.

If David James wasn’t a Democrat-supporting partisan hack, he might recall how Democrats made a calculated choice in 2008 to NOT HOLD BUSH ACCOUNTABLE for torturing humans in the fog of war and calling it “enhanced interrogation” to avoid criminal liability.

Obama wanted to move the country forward and unify Americans instead of doing the difficult work of dealing with the horrors Bush unleashed after 9/11. Sound familiar, David?

After the lost opportunity in 2008 to hold the evil Bush regime accountable for their plethora of atrocities, we have moved farther and farther away from a constitutional republic based on the rule of law toward an authoritarianism that’s starting to look more and more like a fictional installment of The Hunger Games.

A show trial might be good for Democrats, who desperately want you to believe our elections are fair and Joe Biden is actually making presidential decisions, but it’s not going to happen. And why is that?

It won’t happen for the same reason Democrats didn’t use legitimate means, like the emolument clause, to go after Trump. They are ALL swamp creatures living by swamp rules, so exposing the entrenched methods of official corruption would mean limiting their own corrupt party from the methods they have grown to depend on.

David James is a partisan hack, so he won’t be telling you stuff like this.

And the Missoula Current is a propaganda rag run by Montana’s version of Gomer Pyle.

If that’s the kind of info you think will confirm your biases and prejudices, and keep you protected from the harsh realities of what America has actually become on the world stage, then by all means, continue consuming their bullshit.

OR you can wake up, put on your grownup pants, and deal with reality as it exists on the ground.

The choice is yours.

by William Skink

I wrote this poem a few days before interviewing Marisa Acocella about her graphic novel, The Big She-Bang.

Uluru your resonance
counter acts my stone
basalt derives volcanic
leave my mind alone

Uluru you activate 
though we knew your hum
already before the she-bang
made creation come

Uluru my darkened threads
cover northern skin
I'll infiltrate Cascadia
the cycle isn't sin

Uluru forgive them
their heart is inside out
metallic exo-skeleton
won't shield them from the sound

vibratory ascension?
they covet what we got
a key to higher realms
when thought becomes unlocked