Month: May 2021

by William Skink

Today it’s a poem. Next week, maybe a little exposure. Stay tuned.

stakeholder talons piercing your mind
as velvet glove fascists creep into view
rebranding campaigns evolve over time
seed-planting thought now coming to bloom

identity narratives you wear like a suit
as inhuman forces pretend to have skin
forget how they conjure, diluting your loot
and internalize deeply that whiteness is sin

if you can't do this you might be turned off
denied the smart grid your betters have made
the future is WOKE--you think we're joking?
just try laughing from the depth of your grave

by Travis Mateer

Identity politics and hatred of Republicans are seriously deranging our political leadership in Missoula.

Today’s post will be looking at two recent examples of this derangement, starting with our County Commissioners op-ed, which states in the title that the “Floyd verdict demands pursuit of more equitable, just communities”.

Here’s more about just how unequal America’s CASTE system has been throughout history:

For nearly half a millennium on this continent, we have lived within a caste system designed by European colonists to stratify people and keep those layers in place. The very concept of race itself functions as a tool to maintain these social gradations – that is indeed its purpose. This deeply internalized caste structure rationalized the creation of a country built on stolen land with stolen labor. The effects of these constructions and the immeasurable personal and generational trauma they wrought live with us to this day.

The irony of this race-based view of the world is that identity politics is doing exactly what our County Commissioners are claiming to be AGAINST. But they are so deeply invested in the reductionist racism of their race-shaming identity politics that they don’t seem to see how divisive this bullshit is.

The use of the term “caste” is an interesting escalation of the race-shaming game. Did our local Democrats think of using this term themselves? I don’t think so. Here’s a New York Times piece from last summer about America’s Enduring Caste System.

The WOKE religion that identity politics has grown into seeks to permeate ALL aspects of our lives. To emphasize this goal, here’s more about THE FORCE entering into our WOKE lives:

Missoula County desires to lead by example in tearing down that wall, and while we are making strides in our efforts to infuse justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) into everything we do, we still have much work ahead. Missoula County recently adopted a resolution granting a 5% bid reduction to businesses certified with the Montana Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program. 

The state DBE identifies “disadvantaged” groups as racial and ethnic minorities and women and creates space for “persons who are not members of [the aforementioned groups… if they establish their ‘social’ and ‘economic’ disadvantage.” We created this policy to recognize the historical disadvantages the caste system has engendered and to level the playing field for those most impacted.

Ok, that’s enough from our WOKE County Commissioners. Now let’s take a look at my favorite historian, David James, and the very reasonable argument he makes that Republicans are a cartel at war with the Constitution. From the link (my emphasis):

The original sin of the Republican party was Nixon’s Southern strategy–the appeal to southerners through racial and social animus, similar to the fascists of 1930s Germany. This Southern strategy has reemerged in America and come home to roost in Montana politics.

Since losing the Presidential election in 2020, rather than represent the majority of people in America they have expanded this strategy to all 50 states by suppressing the votes of rural and non-whites. And when Trump attempted a coup to overthrow the fair/legal election they also attacked the rule of law.

When you attack the rule of law and the judicial process, when 147 US Representatives still do not recognize Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 election, you are at war with the Constitution. Montanans will remember Rep Matt Rosendale and Senator Steve Daines among them while Governor Gianforte signed two laws that significantly restrict the voting opportunities of Montanans.

I think people like David James are worried that their mechanisms of narrative control aren’t working as well as they would like. Maybe if they keep chanting that Joe Biden is a legitimate winner, electoral problems in Arizona and Georgia will just disappear.

James continues with his tar and feather anti-Republican propaganda, putting forth his argument that Republicans are now a cartel:

The Republican party has evolved into a cartel. A syndicate. Rather than promoting a set of principles to make America better, their purpose is to defeat Democrats and maintain power like OPEC. What are their guiding principles? Are they conservative? What do they stand for? Defeating Democrats and owning the libs? What have they done to help the nation? Do they have a jobs plan? Health care plan? Infrastructure plan? Economic recovery plan? 

Even though David James is spewing partisan bullshit, I don’t think he’s actually wrong about Republicans. The problem is the same applies to Democrats because we don’t have ONE party acting like a cartel, we have a cartel-inspired political duopoly in which BOTH parties are criminal syndicates operating outside legal norms.

This is the only kind of political equality I’m interested in; the kind that acknowledges the TOTAL CORRUPTION of our two party political system.

While David James and our County Commissioners virtue-signal to the WOKE gods of inclusivity, the socio-economic realities of gentrification and homelessness continue to worsen in Missoula.

For example, I know a social worker without a penis (these details are important) and her rent was just jacked up $300 hundred dollars. If this was a white guy I wouldn’t be worried, because white guys deserve what they get for enslaving all the non-whites and getting kick-ass trailer parks as a part of the WHITE SUPREMACY deal they made, but this person has A VAGINA, so our community should be rallying around her to ensure she can afford a roof over her head.

Right?

Returning to the County Commissioners op-ed, they make the veiled threat of bringing EVERYONE along in their virtue-signaling JEDI fun ride, but they will do so with HUMILITY, not ARROGANCE. I know. You gotta read it to believe it:

Our goal is to bring along the entire community with us in our internal efforts to promote JEDI and our external efforts to the community at large. But we will not cater to the lowest common denominator and only move forward when we have 100% consensus from everyone, as that typically results in no movement at all. It may have taken a century and a half to get us to where we are in western Montana; we are not of the mind that it needs to take a century and a half to get us on a better trajectory. The trick is doing so in a spirit of humility and openness rather than arrogance or indifference to opposing viewpoints.

Ask anyone who has been mildly critical of the now TRANSITIONAL Safe Outdoor Space off highway 93 about how OPEN and HUMBLE our County Commissioners have been toward them and I SERIOUSLY DOUBT they would agree with this self-described humility.

I wish race-baiters understood how they are being used as the unwitting foot-soldiers of the oligarch class, providing naive assistance to a well-orchestrated campaign of divide and conquer, but, sadly, they are currently too consumed with this rot to be able to think clearly.

The important thing to remember is this: it doesn’t have to be this way.

We DO NOT have to allow ourselves to be defined by these identity-obsessed politicians and propagandists as they attempt to reorder the world under the auspices of a rebranded stakeholder capitalist model.

I’m going to resist this bullshit and I hope you consider joining me.

Thanks for reading.

by Travis Mateer

Last week I wrote about how Team Gentrify is stacking the Affordable Housing Resident Oversight Committee with a “community” member pick that appears (at least to me) to be part of an overall strategy to put together the Gentrification Dream Team.

Well, another selection to this committee has just been made and I think this pick can ALSO be seen as a willing player for the GDT, former Bernice Bakery owner Christine Littig.

Littig made public comments in SUPPORT of the 4th street condo project, a controversial (and ugly) development that will be a part of the canyonization of the Clark Fork envisioned by other greedy Missoula transplants, like Nick Checota.

Littig also owns several VRBO rentals, like the one above Bernice’s Bakery, which you can rent for a cool $85 bucks a night. An article about the city of Missoula asking property owners to “consider” making less money off their investment stock even featured Littig:

Marco and Christine Littig own two housing units near downtown, and rent them out on Airbnb as well. They’ve met the mayor of Gallup, New Mexico, the publisher of the Washington Post and guest artists who showcase their work at the Missoula Art Museum.

Vacation rentals like Airbnb and VRBO are beneficial to both homeowners and visitors, but now the city of Missoula is encouraging owners of vacation rentals and accessory dwelling units to keep long-term renters in mind as an alternative means of earning extra cash.

Eran Pehan, director of housing and community development for the city, wants to incentivize the construction of accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, through Missoula’s recently released housing policy. And rather than encourage more short-term vacation rentals, she hopes ADU owners will instead rent the small houses to local residents in need of an affordable place to live.

Christine Littig will be a great addition for Team Gentrify on this housing committee. She supports riverfront condos, makes bank on VRBO rentals, and is a proud member of the Missoula Downtown Foundation.

I’m very happy to see the GDT getting assembled because our political establishment really will need all the help they can get to stay on message and keep the rabble from getting too pissed and uppity.

Will it work? Well, Missoula citizens, that is up to you.

by Travis Mateer

Today’s post is going to flip the condescending directive coming from so-called homeless advocates for critics to “listen and learn” instead of taking action steps, like bagging up trash at Reserve Street before high-water takes it downstream.

Emily Armstrong, the current coordinator for the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, articulated this directive in a recent email, which ended with this:

At this juncture, my biggest request for community members looking to engage is to take time to listen and learn. As the one-sheet highlights, there’s a lot happening and it’s all part of a larger strategy around transforming how we address homelessness in Missoula. I’m finding in my work that there’s much progress to be made in our community’s understanding and awareness of all of the initiatives in progress, especially those that compose the basic foundation of our efforts—things like the At-Risk Housing Coalition (ARHC), Missoula Coordinated Entry System (MCES), By-Name List (BNL), FUSE (Frequent Users of Systems Engagement), the difference between our different spaces (The Pov, Johnson St,  TSOS, Reserve St, and others), and most importantly the humanity of homelessness. Our greatest need right now is well-informed community members who understand the complexity of the issue and can speak to the many efforts in progress. Please don’t hesitate to pass along the attached one-sheet with colleagues and community members. Some other useful sources for engagement are below. This is the best place to help right now—listening and learning and fostering awareness.

One of the resources provided by Armstrong is this August 2020 medium post about Missoula’s Coordinated Entry System. You can read that post first, then read what I wrote the previous year in a post titled What You’re Not Being Told About Missoula’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness.

Now, let’s take a closer look at some excerpts from the medium post so readers of THIS blog can learn what the so-called homeless advocates STILL aren’t telling you, starting with this:

Coordinated Entry Systems use standardized assessment tools and prioritization policies to direct people to the resources which are most appropriate for them. They prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable members of the community, and reduce the burdens of navigating social services in times of crises. They also gather data that is crucial for determining how best to allocate resources and identifying any gaps that may exist in the services that are offered.

This general description of a Coordinated Entry System (CES) doesn’t include the fact that trained staff are required to apply these assessment tools to clients. This is a VERY important point to remember as we consider how this system actually functions in the real world.

Missoula’s Coordinated Entry System (MCES) aims to alleviate the burdens of navigating social services in order to help facilitate a rapid and permanent exit from homelessness. By partnering with organizations throughout the community, MCES is able to connect people with resources that exist before tailoring any further assistance they might need. These resources may include transportation, food assistance, legal advice, counseling and support groups, job referrals, etc.

While I support the idea of “alleviating the burdens of navigating social services”, my experience as a service provider at Missoula Aging Services helping homeless clients navigate THIS new system was VERY frustrating.

Some of the problems I encountered was a lack of trained staff at the “front doors” of homeless providers, like only ONE person at the Salvation Army trained to do the assessments. Another problem is the strict definition of homelessness that is used, which puts service providers like myself in the unenviable position of telling a client that couch surfing isn’t being homelessness enough.

I have actually suggested to a client that they sleep in their car on the night before the homeless assessment so that they meet the definition of homelessness outlined by HUD. How fucking crazy is that?

The following excerpt highlights several problems with the MCES, including the LITERAL homeless barrier:

Missoula’s Coordinated Entry System is available to anyone who is literally homeless, and/or anyone who is attempting to flee domestic violence. In order for the system to stay current, people who enter into it are asked to follow up with MCES each month. Sensitive conversations are the nature of this work, and MCES commits to treating every person with dignity and respect; personal information is always protected.

One of the problems I quickly saw when I was educating clients about MCES is the requirement that clients “follow up with MCES each month”. Adding this monthly requirement “in order for the system to stay current” directly undermines the claim at the beginning of the piece about ALLEVIATING the burdens of navigating social services. Kind of hard to justify this claim when the system itself is ADDING the burden of a monthly check-in.

Another claim this excerpt makes is that the MCES is available to ANYONE attempting to flee domestic violence. If this is true, then why is the YWCA no longer one of the main access points?

The three main access points for Missoula’s Coordinated Entry System are the Poverello Center, Salvation Army, and the 211 hotline. Each of these access points has the capacity to offer full navigational support for folks entering into the MCES. There are also several partner organizations within the community that are knowledgeable about and can help to direct people to MCES.

I was surprised to read about only THREE main access points. When I was referring clients to the MCES, there were FOUR. Why is the YWCA no longer a main access point?

As a former insider who was actually interviewed for the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, I have SO MANY questions for people like Emily Armstrong. Maybe that’s why they are politely telling critics to shut up.

Here are some of those questions:

What is the staffing capacity at the three front doors to provide timely assessments for new homeless clients?

What kind of navigation is actually provided to clients to assist them?

How many staff/volunteers are involved in the point-in-time homeless count?

What is being done to review Poverello policies after multiple incidents of violence have occurred INSIDE the shelter?

How many overdoses have there been at the Johnson Street shelter?

How are service providers working with violent and sexual offenders?

There are MANY more questions I have, but I don’t expect honest answers from the people who have been involved in these failing efforts for nearly a decade. What I have seen, and expect to CONTINUE to see, is increasingly desperate efforts to control the narrative in order to protect Missoula’s political establishment from accountability.

I have listened to the so-called homeless advocates long enough and am eager to continue helping others learn what I have learned about their manipulative tactics and damage control PR spin.

Just give me 20 minutes and a partially open mind and the education I can provide will be illuminating.

Stay tuned…

by Travis Mateer

Ok, the player above hopefully represents some improved functionality for listeners of the Zoom Town podcast. If there are issues, please let me know in the comments or email.

Thank you for listening.