Author: JC

By JC

(This originally started off as just a comment to Skink’s last post, but in my usual rambling way progressed way beyond comment material, so I thought I’d just pot it up here, as it goes way off his topic.)

I think that most people in this country are unwilling to make the connection between our foreign policy and the refugee crisis. I come to that conclusion through observation far and wide, and through conversations locally and through social media. And it is exceedingly difficult to get people to look beyond the domestic propaganda mill and look at the evidence in a more objective fashion — leading a horse to water and all…

Given that these people believe that the refugee problem is a foreign and organic problem — that is to say, something that has happened “over there” — it makes sense to want to be supportive of refugees. Now, I’m a feeling person, and have as much empathy for refugees as I do, say the homeless on the streets here in Montana. Both groups equally a victim of the powers that be. And equally deserving of our help.  Continue reading “Furthering the Deep State”

By JC

You get the founder of America’s and the world’s most valuable company.

By JC

I attempted to add the following comment at Intelligent Discontent on Don Pogreba’s post “Does Islam Promote Violence? Stupid Question Gets a Smart Answer.” As usual, my comments get moderated and never post.

Pogreba’s post consists of nothing more than a much regurgitated Reza Aslan interview at CNN as an answer to his question. Unfortunately, Don refrains from adding any original thought to the video, so one must assume that he is down with it.

Fortunately, there are people far more informed than I (and obviously Pogreba) who have much invested in the matter, and avoid trite knee-jerk responses to the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East, and spilling over into Africa and Europe. I much prefer the well thought out discussion by the two ex-Muslims quoted below to Aslan’s theatrics. So here is my comment (reformatted into a post here) to Don:

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So I don’t why Don would post Reza Aslan’s interview without doing a bit of due diligence. Aslan’s interview sparked a huge outcry in the Muslim sphere after it was aired on CNN….

For those who would like to hear a cogent rebuttal, “Reza Aslan is Wrong About Islam and This is Why”, Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider (co-founders of Ex-Muslims of North America, a community-building organization for ex-Muslims) weigh in at Patheos.com:

…We believe that Islam badly needs to be reformed, and it is only Muslims who can truly make it into a modern religion. But it is the likes of Reza Aslan who act as a deterrent to change by refusing to acknowledge real complications within the scripture and by actively promoting half-truths. Bigotry against Muslims is a real and pressing problem, but one can criticize the Islamic ideology without treating Muslims as themselves problematic or incapable of reform.

There are true Muslim reformists who are willing to call a spade a spade while working for the true betterment of their peoples — but their voices are drowned out by the noise of apologists who are all-too-often aided by the Western left. Those who accept distortions in order to hold on to a comforting dream-world where Islamic fundamentalism is merely an aberration are harming reform by encouraging apologists.

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Please go read the whole post by Sayed and Haider. It is a refreshing alternative to the liberal apologies offered by “the left” in the West.

Guest post by Matthew Koehler

If anyone opens up the Missoulian opinion page today you’ll be greeted by an epic, off-the-rails rant from the Montana Wilderness Association’s ‘communications manager’ Ted Brewer (complete with outright lies and entirely propped up by strawman arguments) against longtime environmental and public lands champion George Ochenski.

Recently the Missoulian published two columns on its Opinion page that were, topically speaking, quite different. Psychologically speaking, however, they were quite similar.

One column claimed the U.S. government is controlling the weather through commercial airliner exhaust, known as “chemtrails.” The other was George Ochenski’s column claiming the Forest Service is using tax dollars to “buy” the support of conservation groups for logging, grazing and other resource extraction projects.

A friend of mine who used to work at a daily newspaper calls the Opinion page a “fact-free zone,” but these two conspiracy theories, printed on the same day, turned the Missoulian’s Opinion page into a paranoia playground, where President Obama makes it rain and an extravagantly funded Forest Service slips bags of cash to conservation groups while dining on filet of bull trout and leg of Canada lynx.

I’m the communications manager at Montana Wilderness Association, certainly one of the top entries on Ochenski’s list of enemies and a longtime, routine target of his column. (If Ochenski goes a few months without blasting MWA, I start to wonder if his mind might be slipping.) I’ve also been a writer for the past 20-odd years. I’ve written a fair number of magazine stories that have required me to dig for the sources that back my claims. It’s part of the job and the fun of doing credible journalism.

But once you start making outrageous claims without providing proof, then you’ve joined the ranks of birthers, chemtrail conspiracy mongers, and other ideological zealots and crackpots with personal and political axes to grind. That’s where we find Ochenski these days, so desperate to smear his enemies that he compares them to Nazis (yes, he did that) or tries to embroil them in controversies of his own paranoid concoction.

In the opinion piece, the Montana Wilderness Association compares Ochenski to “birthers, chemtrail conspiracy mongers, and other ideological zealots and crackpots.” The Montana Wilderness Association also calls on the Missoulian to replace George Ochenski (their very popular, weekly progressive columnist).

Apparently, what caused the Montana Wilderness Association to go completely off the deep end was the following information Ochenski included in a recent opinion column, in which he highlighted the comments by Wilderness Legend Stewart Brandborg (the only living person who was responsible for passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964). Brandborg recently warned groups like MWA at a Wilderness Conference to “resist the fuzzy, fuzzy Neverland of collaboration,” because Brandborg believes that groups like MWA are giving up huge chunks of America’s public lands legacy in exchange for basically what amounts to some Wilderness crumbs. Continue reading “MWA Demands Missoulian Replace Ochenski with a Lackey”