by Travis Mateer
I observed the energy of the PRIDE weekend from the vantage point of a cynic who doesn’t slam alcohol and isn’t impressed by the politics of the homeless conversation happening right now in Missoula, especially the grandstanding coming from Zooey Zephyr. Here’s how the Missoulian framed the politics of the weekend:
Some attendees did not wait until Pride was over to take action. As Mayor Davis began her speech at the rally on Friday, a group of protesters lined up silently in front of the main stage. They held signs with messages like “Homelessness is a policy choice” and “Don’t ban camping day or night.”
The signs referenced an ordinance passed by the Missoula City Council on June 11 that places new restrictions on urban encampments on public property. Both Zephyr and Akilah Deernose, executive director of the ACLU of Montana, criticized the ordinance in their speeches, citing the Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+ community’s vulnerability to homelessness.
“For a city that claims to be welcoming of diversity and caring of the Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA community, that policy actually does the opposite, right?” Deernose said, encouraging those booing in the crowd to boo louder.
Do these two political grandstanders have any clue about the violence and degradation associated with drug addiction and alcohol abuse? And do they have any clue about how little treatment options exist in this state? Or is it just easier to ignore those aspects of homelessness because it doesn’t jive with your political agenda?
By the end of Friday night I had plenty of puke puddles to avoid, and I even saw a very drunk woman erupt like a volcano, puking all over herself at an outside table. Her friends were trying to get me to take her drink, but I declined.
The “minority report” from the critics of the resolution that emerged from the urban camping working group got some attention from NBC Montana about their complaints. From the link:
The ordinance is “vastly different” than the minority report, council member Kristen Jordan said. The proposal is “short-sighted” by Mayor Andrea Davis, specifically her staff, Jordan told NBC Montana.
“I think why did we even do the urban camping working group if staff were just going to be able to roll out what they wanted to roll out since last summer,” Jordan said. “It just felt like a really disingenuous process.”
Davis addressed the work group’s role in committee last week and what she called a “misunderstanding” by some that the group was a policy-making body.
“I want to clarify for folks that the working group was not set up to write a resolution nor an ordinance,” Davis said. “It was established to discuss the issue, to bring forward concepts, to learn from one another and make recommendations, and those recommendations are exactly what happened.”
When it comest to homelessness and pride, there is a common denominator I see and that common denominator is NARRATIVE CONTROL. Locally this will mean ignoring the fact SOME people transitioning are so mentally disturbed that they pose risks to others, like the alleged murder that occurred at the beginning of June in Missoula.
Another example of narrative control is happening at the national level with a journalist potentially facing jail time for NOT giving up the source that provided a copy of the manifesto from another mentally disturbed individual who committed horrific violence. From the link:
A public records case over a leaked manifesto belonging to Audrey Hale, a transgender individual who shot up the Covenant School in a Nashville suburb – killing three 9-year-old children and three adults, has spiraled into a contentious legal battle which could see a journalist tossed in jail if he doesn’t reveal his source.
On Monday, Chancellor I’Ashea Myles of Davidson County ordered Michael Patrick Leahy, editor and owner of the conservative news website The Tennessee Star, to appear in court. Leahy is to participate in a “show cause hearing” on June 17 to address why he should not be held in contempt over his publication’s use of the leaked documents.
Yes, narrative control is interesting when it comes to protecting local politicians from things they themselves have said and done, like this tweet from Zephyr describing her ideal relationship with a man, which only saw the light of day thanks to an obnoxious right-winger.
Another topic referenced at Saturday’s pride party was Israel’s genocidal violence, to which Zephyr said this:
Zephyr also emphasized the need to stand up for marginalized people. She was one of several speakers at Friday’s rally to bring up Palestine and specifically criticized the city council’s decision in January to table a cease-fire resolution regarding the Israel-Hamas war.
“It is incumbent on us to stand up and tell our electives that if they ignore all of our suffering, if they ignore suffering in any form, they harm our community,” Zephyr said.
This grandstanding won’t do anything to alleviate the broad suffering of the economically squeezed Missoulians who don’t have victims cards to play for public sympathy, so it will be interesting to see where this goes, especially as the political season heats up and Democrats try desperately to keep their favorite Jon in power.
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Thanks for reading!
“I think why did we even do the urban camping working group if staff were just going to be able to roll out what they wanted to roll out since last summer,” Jordan said. “It just felt like a really disingenuous process.”
Did Kristen Jordan say this with a straight face? How long has she been on the City Council? She should know by now how the government works in Missoula City and Missoula County. The people in power put out a proposal and then let the public have their say within the law-mandated time period (not that whatever is spoken is given any consideration or even listened to). Then the government does what they were planning to do from the very beginning.
“…like this tweet from Zephyr describing her ideal relationship with a man, which only saw the light of day thanks to an obnoxious right-winger.”
“He had surgical vaginoplasty in 2022 (indeed he was not in Missoula on election night when he was elected to the Montana House, but was flying to New York for post-operative care of the permanent wound where his natural genitals used to be).” — from the article cited
Travis, are you playing the “pronoun” game here? Zachary Raasch (Zooey Zephyr as he is known now) is a man with XY chromosomes. The fact that he cut off his package for whatever reason does not make him a woman nor does it mean that anyone else has to address him with female pronouns.
He is a male human being, albeit mentally and spiritually ill, and nothing will ever change that.