by Travis Mateer
This will probably be my last weekly review for awhile, so please do enjoy it. I have put myself on assignment for a variety of reasons, but one of them is DEFINITELY the fact a legal cloud has been placed over me by kangaroos, and I find that reality to be absolutely intolerable.
Have you ever received a friendly call from a cop telling you that both direct and indirect references to someone with a fucking BATTLE AXE to grind, even if no names are involved, could get you arrested? I have, and without legal representation to better educate me on where my right to write ends, and the petitioner’s right to not be bothered by shit I write begins, I can’t take the risk. I’ve already taken TOO MANY risks for this person.
I am going on a LONG loop, and will update this virtual space as much as possible because I’ve invested too much money, sweat and tears in building up this audience with my daily writing. Maybe we’ll even learn a thing or two about some other places that could help provide insight into the happenings of Zoom Town.
I picked up the book for this week’s reading, which you can see below, at a little donation-only shop in Darby. Here is the Wikipedia blurb for some quick context on why a Sheriff by the name of Henry Plummer got himself hung dead:
Henry Plummer (1832–1864) was a prospector, lawman, and outlaw in the American West in the 1850s and 1860s, who was known to have killed several men. He was elected sheriff of Bannack, Montana, in 1863 and served until 1864, during which period he was accused of being the leader of a “road agent” gang of outlaws known as the “Innocents,” who preyed on shipments from Virginia City, Montana to other areas. In response some leaders in Virginia City formed the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch and began to take action against Plummer’s gang, gaining confessions from a couple of men they arrested in early January 1864. On January 10, 1864, Plummer and two associates were arrested in Bannack by a company of the Vigilantes and summarily hanged. Plummer was given a posthumous trial in 1993 which led to a mistrial. The jury was split 6–6.
My little trip down the Bitterroot was nice, up until that phone call, because out here the effort to control narratives is easier to see.
In fact, if you want to see one of the MOST EFFECTIVE narrative assaults on the west, just watch the tv series, Yellowstone, and you will see how the narrative poison is used to soften up the targets (us) for the physical assault, which comes under the guise of innocuous sounding things, like zoning reform and equity policies.
Over the last week there was one thing I didn’t get a chance to write about, so I’ll do it now, and that’s my surprise that Heidi West articulated some public doubt about the existence of tangible results from Missoula’s equity cult. From the link (emphasis mine):
On Wednesday, Ward 1 representative Heidi West asked for the city’s budget to be amended so that the $147,180 allocated to the JEDI program would instead go to fund after-school recreation programming at Missoula Title I schools, which are federally recognized as having a certain amount of low-income students.
West told her fellow council members that the JEDI program was created in the aftermath of the summer of 2020.”
Several years into JEDI, it is still unclear what needs are being addressed, what this program is intended to do, or how success is defined,” she told the council in her request. “Program accomplishments to date, such as standardizing pay for city staff, should be addressed through existing human resources standards.”
While a little skepticism is refreshing to see, it won’t change anything. No, I don’t think ANYTHING will change until the cracks in the narrative dam widen big enough for the truth to REALLY start flowing. In that spirit, I’m leaving as a trickle with the hopes of returning as a fucking deluge.
Here are the links to last week’s articles:
What This Man Is Sharing Is Serious And Where This Is Going Is Not Good (August 14th, 2023)
On What We Leave Behind (August 15th, 2023)
Don’t Worry, Mr. Freedom, Your Secret Is Safe With Me! (August 16th, 2023)
On Stupidly Dangerous Homeless Ideas And An Irritable Métis As Montana’s New Poet Laureate (August 17th, 2023)
Did Barbie Really Come From Germany, Leaving A Scandalous Life Of Seducing Men Behind? (August 18th, 2023)
And here are the ways to support me: Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF); donation button at my about page.
Thanks you for listening/reading!
JC
It’s none of my business but wouldn’t it be better to stay here and be close to your kids and Lee your head down here for a while? Maybe take a break and work on your book and focus on your family. Best to you.
It’s hard for me to believe that anything you’ve published since your hearing on the TOP, forms any basis for subjecting you arrest for alleged violation of the order. Your First Amendment and Article II, sec.7 rights have not been limited except as to direct communication between you and Petitioner, and as to indirect communications to the Petitioner via third parties *acting at your behest,* correct? By no means am I suggesting that you publish anything pertaining to your legal matter. I mean, Trump does not set a good example of how one under intense scrutiny and legal aggression, rationally behaves. Nor is he helping his case with his nose-thumbing at the trial courts and poorly-veiled public statements clearly intended to intimidate witnesses. But just as a thought experiment — a flight-of-fancy hypothetical Constitutional scenario merely for two conversants’ mutual intellectual amusement: it’s axiomatic and therefore commonly understood by all who received even a rudimentarily adequate primary education, that in this State and Nation, publishing about one’s life experiences is Constitutionally protected, and that protection is (setting aside class, race and other differential power dynamics) enforced! Likewise, logic (as well as the example of Trump) ultimately compels the conclusion that an otherwise protected publication could by design be, in a TOP matter, an attempt — cloaked in the First Amendment and MTConst. art. II, sec. 7 — to circumvent a no-contact clause, and thereby forfeit its Constitutionally privileged status.
Your sanity and tranquility are, of course, of paramount concern, as they are for everyone. So, I understand a choice not to appeal, if you decide that. It really burns my ass to sit here unable to help you due to my not being admitted to the State Bar of Montana. As your friend, I support whatever you decide to do. In my personal opinion, you’ve been shafted. I’m also disappointed by the lack of a Peoples’ Bar in this ostensibly lliberal city. When I was in law school 40 years ago, much effort was expended by professors to instill a moral compass, a sense of decency, into us; that is, zealously representing clients within the bounds of law and ethics, never rejecting, solely for personal reasons, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed, and never using one’s law license for purposes of personal retribution, etc. I firmly believe that were the full story made known to a magistrate on appeal, an order such as, for example yours, would be dissolved. It’s pathetic that our system permits a lawyer to exploit another person’s indigency and that our courts allow it to happen, and then restrain the indigent respondent’s liberty without the indigent respondent being afforded thr right to appointed, publicly-aid counsel. This is something shouting for reform. It’s not my idea of Due Process of Law.
Reading recommendation: Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Don’t believe in synchronicity but when I read it I thought of you.