Montana Articles

Council and Courthouse: Monday Thoughts from Missoula

6/29/2015

It’s Monday so I figured I’d head on down to the Missoula City Council. I needn’t have bothered.

The sun was shining and it was somewhere between 95º and 100º F depending on the electronic business sign you were looking at. I was looking forward to some taxpayer-funded air conditioned at the Council Chambers. It was with great surprise, therefore, that I walked across Pine Street, grabbed ahold of the door at #170, and found it to be locked. Yes, the Council was not in session.

My mind quickly began to swirl with possibilities.

Did the mayor have a heart attack?

Did Governor Bullock shit-can their asses?

Was it really Monday?

That was it; I’d gotten the days confused. I don’t really have a real job, and the days are fading together what with the family gone…that was it, it was Tuesday, I’d simply munged up the days.

But…that wasn’t right, either. I knew it was Monday because I’d made an appointment to get an oil change on Monday afternoon, and had done so. I was not in a time warp.

Then it dawned on me – the Missoula City Council only meets four Mondays a month. Today was the fifth Monday.

It’s plain as day on the Missoula City Council website:

Those swarmy bastards. That’s tricky shit, right there. Reminds me of this joke-of-a-professor I once had at UM. He taught a Chinese history course, one that only met for three hours on a Monday. It was mighty convenient that most of the university’s holidays just so happened to fall on Monday. Convenient for him, educational theft for us students.

Mike Mansfield never would have stood for that nonsense when he was at UM, and I don’t feel that Missoula taxpayers should have to stand for this nonsense from their City Council. If it’s Monday, they should meet. There’s always important business to discuss.

Sadly, the Council doesn’t really feel the need to discuss much of this, and they don’t often listen to others. This produces frustration, leading to blowups.

You can read quite a bit about the recent City Council blowups in a June 27 Missoulian article called MARTIN KIDSTON: Speak now, or forever hold your peace. In the article, Missoulian reporter Martin Kidston points out how I and another woman have been voicing our “conservative opinions.” He also points out that “sometimes the comments go south and turn insulting,” and that would be me.

Kidston doesn’t think those comments of mine saying “the public is so sick of you” are “productive.”

Many didn’t find Kidston’s article to be productive, including former Missoulian editor Bill Schwanke, who worked at the paper from 1970 to 2010. He really gives Kidston a drubbing:

As a graduate of the University of Montana journalism school I long for the days when they were actually turning out reporters and not crusader and/or cheerleaders. Martin Kidston falls into both categories. It's amazing to me that someone that has been around as long as he has, working in Missoula and elsewhere, can't figure out why public comment is diminishing.

He goes after the City Council as well, and I can’t help but think we should listen to these people that have followed the news closely for decades. Remember, Schwanke worked with Mayor Engen when Engen was still a reporter at the Missoulian. Hell, he probably helped train him.

Anyways, it’s a good article, chiefly because of the comments. I left a long one that lays out my case of why spending is so bad, and you get a complete bond history of Missoula. Check it out.

I was disappointed with the City Council’s decision to not meet today, especially since it was likely to be the last day I went down there. Yeah, I think I’m going to stop wasting time on this.

Like Schwanke says in the article, if you comment you’re “treated with obvious disdain or disinterest” because you have a different viewpoint than the council. This is why the public doesn’t show up, he says.

I don’t think I’ll show up anymore. What’s the use? They don’t want to listen to me, and besides, I can’t make much difference. I could possibly make a difference if I was to run for City Council, but the filing deadline is Thursday and I don’t have the $140, not with car insurance this month and rent on top of it. I’ve got to drive up to Whitefish this week to pick up my family and then to Butte for the 4th.

Nope, I need to focus my time and attention on making money, and then I need to spend that money constructively. Spending money to run for the Missoula City Council, the way this town is today, is not a constructive use of finances.

I’ve been thinking ever since I wrote my last letter to the Missoulian that my being in Missoula isn’t constructive. It’s not really constructive for me or my finances, and it’s sure not constructive for my family. My wife makes $11 an hour as a daycare teacher, and we know that pay will never go up. She could double that if we’d just move to Oregon…or maybe somewhere she wants to go for a change.

The day that letter appeared in the newspaper she was at the New York airport, ready to head to Russia. I asked her how she’d feel about leaving Missoula. She would have absolutely no problem with that.

Wow, why not? There’s really no point in writing about politics…nothing ever changes, and anyone that’s in a position to do anything is so entrenched and uncaring that it does little good. The only time anyone cares about writings on politics is if they’re running for election and need some press. And it’s clear that Montanans don’t feel the need for political writing. The lack of interest after Dennison and Johnson left is evidence of that, as well as the shutdown of 4&20.

I think I need to write about writing again, or just not write a blog at all. I should focus on fiction and other things that actually make me money. I kind of complained about this before with my thoughts on no one sharing or commenting. Maybe for July I’ll just put up a couple posts, like I did in March, and on other stuff. It’d sure clear out my Montana To-Do Folder:

Montana Topics to Write About (w/politics)

w/out politics

I don’t know…we’ll see. Until then, I’d like to discuss one last issue, and that’s the construction at the Missoula County Courthouse.

An eyesore like this should bother Missoulians, but they've become so used to graft and incompetence that it goes unnoticed

When an office is set up on a construction site, you know taxpayers are going to get screwed

$12 to $14 million of your tax dollars was given to these firms so they could park their shit outside the Courthouse for 4 years, pretending like they're working

I hope our eyesore doesn't get in the way of that holiday photo you were thinking about

The Missoula Courthouse remodel project began in 2012 and is expected to last until 2016.

Yeah, 4 years they’re doing this. It’s going to cost $12 to $14 million, another indication of how terrible our local governments are – they don’t even know what something costs, and think a $2 million discrepancy is acceptable.

I was surprised to see the construction in January 2014 when I filed to run for the Montana House and headed down to the courthouse with all the other Missoula Democrats. I think it’s a real shame that a project like this takes so long, and costs so much.

Montana didn’t used to be this incompetent. We use to have leaders. When I think of this courthouse remodel, I can’t help but think of Montana’s 14th Governor, J. Hugo Aronson, the “Galloping Swede.”

When the heating plant at the governor’s mansion went down in the late-1950s, Aronson “happily cleaned the valves, replaced a sixty-five cent gadget, and got the system going again.” The state plumbing board “issued the governor a master plumber’s license” after the work, according to the December 1957 issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

Governor Aronson on the Montana Capitol steps, c 1955

They don’t make ‘em like that anymore, but then it doesn’t really matter, because most Montanans today have no idea who that was. There’s a lot of things we don’t know today – living within our means, saving for tomorrow, working hard every Monday – and it’s a real shame. It’s one of the reasons why Montana has fallen so far behind the rest of the country.

Sadly, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

The Montana Blog’s 100th Post (Links to All Posts)

Mayor Gets Water, Residents Lose Shirts (June 15, 2015)

Showdown at the Missoula City Council (June 8, 2015)

Attending the Missoula City Council…Again (May 4, 2015)

The Missoula City Council Continues to Burn Money (April 27, 2015)

Crazy Continues at the Missoula City Council (April 20, 2015)

If I Wanted to Run for Missoula City Council, What Would I Do? (Feb 22, 2015)

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Refining the 2016 Montana Democratic Message

6/28/2015

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A few days ago we talked about political messaging in a post called the 2016 Democratic Message in Montana.

We talked a lot about the national message, how it’s being crafted, and by whom. I feel that the rich and well-off are getting what they want, but you and I aren’t getting shit.

What’s the 2016 Democratic message?

We still have no idea, though we raised these concerns last time:

Raise the Minimum Wage;
Legalize Marijuana;
Build Infrastructure;
Tackle Student Debt;
Environment – Change You Can See.

So those were some talking points and issues that can get people excited.

You know what’ll really get ‘em moving to the polls, however? Jobs.

People want jobs! They want good jobs, not this piddly shit we’re handing ‘em here in Missoula. I spoke out against the minimum wage service jobs that out-of-staters put on our highway exits before heading off to HQ several states away.

Who does this help?

Let’s talk about good jobs, the kind that pay well and that you can be proud to talk about with the relatives back home during the holidays. Sadly, Montana has few of those these days, and more ‘good jobs’ seem to go away than come.

I wish Democrats talked about this more, but they don’t think it’s necessary. I guess that’s because the top ‘leadership’ all have cushy government, taxpayer jobs. Yep, elected officials, making your dime. Ask many of them what they did before, and it’s a good bet it was another government job.

Is it any wonder that we’re not bringing good jobs here? Many Democrats have never had to create jobs, or even work in the private sector!

But I digress. Pointing out the faults of the party faithful won’t do much to get them to change. Instead heels will be dug in, nothing will be done.

While more of the same might appeal to some, it sure doesn’t appeal to me. The Montana Democratic Convention is in Bozeman over August 14-15, and John Driscoll had a good letter in the Missoulian today about the terrible representation local counties have at that convention. I’m sure that letter will be ignored.

It’s a shame, because the local party really needs some revival. I dropped in on the Missoula County Democrats’ webpage today, and it’s a relic from before the 2014 elections. Hell, I think it’s even earlier than that.

So there’s work to be done. Right now the Montana Republicans are organized, and they have a plan. It’s called the 4 R Plan, and it’ll wreak havoc on us if we’re not careful. Thankfully I’ve come across a copy:

Essman's 4 R Plan

Yep, we’re looking at the same points I brought attention to yesterday in our analysis of the 2015 Montana Republican Convention. Let’s list those again:

Recruit;
Respond;
Raise;
Reorganize.

Can we boil them down a bit?

Recruit: Enlist candidates while assisting local county committees on training them and recruiting more;

Respond: Focus on issue politics, not personality politics, while at the same time listening to all ideas and giving continual updates on what the state party is doing, both its successes and failures;

Raise: Have a fundraising plan that coordinates with local organizations to meet clearly defined goals, as well as the incorporation of a finance team to oversee these efforts;

Reorganize: Have a strategic advisory team that knows how to give candidates modern tools to help them get elected, while at the same time focusing on strengths and weaknesses of the overall organization.

I wrote about most of this stuff in my book Social Media Politics: Using the Internet to Get Elected. I’m sure most of you won’t buy it, for whatever reasons, and that’s a shame. I sure hope someone at the Montana Democratic Party is coming up with a 2016 game plan for you.

One of Essman’s main flaws is going for issues over personality. Historically, this has not been how politics has operated…at least in times of trouble. What I mean is, when a governor loses some of the support of his party, or has to rely on an issue that the other party supports so he can stay in power, they’ll rely on that personality to carry them through. It’s clear why Essman is doing this – there are no large Republican personalities on the stage that can maintain party cohesion. These would be your Marc Racicot’s or Conrad Burns, or Brian Schweitzer or Max Baucus for the Democrats. These people are all gone now, or at least off the stage. In fact, they don’t even go to the state conventions.

I’d imagine Mike Hopkins will be a key player in that finance team that’s responsible for party fundraising efforts. He was elected the party’s treasurer yesterday. I met him once at a Target Range candidate forum back in 2014, and I think he has his head on straight. In other words, Montana Republicans will be raising a lot of money.

I have to ask, why is the Montana Democratic Party not doing any of this? Are all of the party donations going right to Bullock’s war chest? We need people updating blogs, doing social media, making flyers, and especially what Driscoll is talking about, getting local people organized. I think it’s a disgrace that the Democrats haven’t stepped in to fill the news void left by Johnson and Dennison at Lee Newspapers. That’s a missed opportunity to spread your message in a low-information environment. Since they won’t do it, I will. Someone has to.

Let’s rework Essman’s 4 R plan into our own 4 R plan. This is what that might look like:

Recognize: We don’t need to recruit so much as recognize. We already have a lot of good Democrats out there, many of whom are doing good work. Let’s recognize them! Some are young Democrats, and some have been around for awhile. Oh, and enough of this DINO shit, alright?

Respond: We’re going to listen to your concerns and respond to them in a concrete way, not like some stick in the mud that’s deaf in both ears. We’re not going to play blame games that move us back, but instead we’ll engage in concrete dialogue that propels us forward.

Ready: While the Republicans are busy raising money among their rich donors, we’ll ready our forces, holding them in reserve for the coming battle. Of course, this means identifying the troops and arming them. Registering voters helps with that, as well as putting forth issues and ideas that excite them enough to come forward on their own.

Release: We need to release our forces, their pent up anger and frustrations over what America has become, and use that to sweep into the 2017 legislature. People are pissed, damn it, and we need to harness the power of that and release it upon the Republicans, utterly obliterating them in the process. It'll be a sweep in ’16 alright, just not in the direction they think.

Those are ideas, and I hope the Montana Democratic Party thinks about them.

I have no idea who the Montana Democratic Party is, to be honest, and most people in this state are the same way. It sounds like some monolithic force on the land, like a new Anaconda Company. It’s imposing, off-putting, and cold. That’s what it seems like to all the people that aren’t voting!

Let’s change that, and figure out how to move this state forward instead of just staying stuck in the mud.

Who's leading the Montana Democratic Party?

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No One Excites ‘Em Like Amanda Curtis

6/28/2015

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I was looking for something on Wikipedia today and felt a little tingle of pride when I was done. Yep, I searched for my own name.

I wasn’t expecting anything to come up, and was therefore quite surprised when something did. It was the United States Senate election in Montana, 2014 page.

If you go all the way down to the bottom, you’ll see my name in the references:

That points to my story about Linda McCulloch, during those few days before the Democratic nominating convention when we were all wondering who it’d be.

Those were exciting days, and I’m proud of the information I and other Montana media sources put out, and I’m proud of getting a reference on Wikipedia like that.

I’m also proud of Amanda Curtis.

Wow, she sure excited the state, didn’t she? Big crowds came to see her, and she gave people hope. Reading her story on Wikipedia, you can see why:

Amanda Curtis Bio

I wrote a lot about Amanda Curtis in 2014, and you can check out all those article by following that link there. I hope to write about her again, but I’m not sure when that will be.

I, and many others, thought she’d take a stab at OPI Director, but then Melissa Romano came out real quick and took that. Could she run for the U.S. House in 2016 against Zinke? I’d like to see that, but we just saw James Stgoddard declare.

Could she replace Eric Feaver as head of MEA-MFT? Ha, I doubt that will happen, but it just goes to show…we’re grasping at straws here. Still, I can’t help but think we need this woman, and it’s quite obvious when you look at everyone that didn’t have the guts to do what she did, and that was challenge Daines in a nearly impossible situation.

Montana Democrats that declined to run for the U.S. Senate in 2014

Those are some big names, and maybe some of them could have won. But I honestly don’t think there are many on that list that could have excited Montana as much as that young woman from Butte did. She’s a real leader.

Let’s hope we see more of Amanda Curtis soon. A good place to start would be the Montana Democratic Convention in August.

Hey, when is that, anyways?

Well…I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. I looked online for it, and I didn’t find anything. Huh…maybe it’s a secret. (Update: found it)

The good news is there’s still time for you to get your ‘want list’ out of things you want to see addressed at that convention, or who you want to see. We already went over the 2016 Montana Democratic Message, but we’ll refine that over the next week.

I will tell you, I want to see Amanda Curtis speak. She didn’t speak at the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner in March, though lots of other people did. As I said back then, Bullock and McLean were pretty good, everyone else, eh…not so much.

Amanda Curtis could fire up that crowd, and probably just by talking about her upbringing. That’ll always get a crowd in the palm of your hand, at least a Montana crowd. You know why? Because that’s what most Montana lives sound like.

I’m not sure that’s what the lives of those speaking in August would have looked like, however, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the leadership of the Montana Democratic Party doesn’t really look like Montana anymore. Over at Intelligent Discontent today, it was reported that 42% of Montana students qualify as low-income. Yet I feel that few at that convention in August will be able to call themselves the same.

I’ll be able to, as I plan to go…wherever the hell it is. I’ll go for one day, as I have to work for a living and have a family, and can’t be driving a lot or staying over. So I’ll see the voting and write about it, but I’m not expecting anything ‘spectacular’ or even ‘substantive’ to happen. I bet it’ll be more of the same, to be completely honest with you.

Boring!

And sadly, that means Democrats will be in the minority in the legislature again in 2017.

It’s the economy, stupid!

People care about jobs, and making more money, and feeling more secure financially, and not having to worry about their kids moving out of state!

This is no-brainer stuff right here, but Montana Democrats ignore this Montana dinner table talk. Instead they continually focus on minority issues. Well, I guess that’s what you do when you’re in the minority.

To echo Tammy Hall at yesterday’s GOP Convention, if I have to hear one more damn speech about abortion or gay rights, I think I’ll throw up.

The majority of Montanans do not care about this! Thankfully one of those points should now be about moot since the Supreme Court ruled that anyone can get married now. Of course, you’ll never stop hearing about gay rights, and how the march can never fully be over.

I expect not – a helluva lot of people in the country read the Bible and believe that gay marriage is sodomy. They believe that the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were wiped out by God in 2067 B.C. because He was pissed about gay sex.

Hey, you can get mad at me for saying that, but it’s not going to do much good – I’m just telling you what many people think. Nay, I’m telling you what they believe.

If you think Republicans and others on the right have been challenging abortion laws for a long time, just wait until they rally and get organized and mobilize against this ruling. It ain’t gonna be pretty, let me tell you, and it sure as shit isn’t going to end quickly. It’ll drag on for decades, just like the fight against abortion, because it’s profitable for a select few in this country – primarily lawyers – and keeps the loudest of the fringe element distracted from the issues that really matter, the economic issues.

Again, you can get mad at me, but there are just 3.6% of Americans identify as LGBT, or 11.4 million people. In Montana that would come to 36,864 people. We know that 15.2% of the state lives in poverty, and that’s 155,648 people. Are you telling me someone’s right to marry is more important than a kid getting enough to eat? I’m sorry, but I don’t think that.

For abortions, we know that abortions are down 12% from 2010 abortion levels, meaning just about 673,000 are expected to be performed this year.

That’s a lot, but again, it represents 0.21% of the American population. Since we don’t consider those 673,000 to be people, however, I guess it doesn’t matter.

That attitude really pisses off religious conservatives. To them, each time an abortion is performed, it’s a human sacrifice to Satan. And although less than 1% of the Democratic Party is affected by it, they’ll fight tooth and nail for that right, even it if costs the majority of people in this country fair and adequate representation.

I don’t know a single woman that’s concerned about losing her right to an abortion, but then, I don’t know many old women. Old women are the only ones worried about this, like 63-year old Nancy Keenan. She’s worried like hell that her ability to have an abortion will be taken away.

I’m not. I could care less, to tell you the truth. That’s a women’s issue. I’m just disappointed the women in Montana and America are so loud in their mock discontent that they’re drowning out the important talk, and ruining our chances to get elected.

I expect we’ll hear a lot more of their bellyaching come August, however, and if so, we might as well expect that the legislature will be gone to us again in 2017.

Montanans just don’t care about the issues that the Montana Democratic Party pushes.

And the Montana Democratic Party could care less about that.

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My Student Loans are Paid Off

6/28/2015

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My student loans are gone, all $11,807.42 that remained.

I wish I could say I paid them off, but I can’t. While it’s true that I paid off $22,671 on my own, the last was paid off by my mom. Or more precisely, by my grandma.

Earlier this month my Grandma Joyce died. I wrote about her a bit on Montana Cowgirl in May 2014 in an article called The Senior Problem in Montana. She’d been moved from Oregon to Havre after her health declined two years ago, and then just a few months ago we moved her from Havre to Missoula. After that it was just time to go, and she died on May 26. You can read her obituary here if you’d like.

My mom and her three sisters and brother got the Oregon house sold and that ensured my grandma would have all the money she’d need, not counting Medicaid. When she died she still had more than $200,000 and when that was divided among her five children it came out to quite a bit. Since most of them are successful in their careers or already retired, they don’t really need the money. At least that’s the case with my mom, so my student loans were paid off.

I’m lucky. Most people will toil under student land debt for years and years, if not decades in some cases. I was ‘lucky’ to only have $31,000 or so when I graduated in 2008, and then I was lucky to make sustained payments for several years while living in China. I wrote all about that in an April 16 post called A Look at the Student Loan Dilemma.

It’d been a little harder to make those payments after having a kid and moving back to America, but I was really picking up steam on ‘em again. Then suddenly that whole worry is gone.

Wow, I’m lucky!

Most people that take out student loans in Montana aren’t so lucky. We all know that you can only get rid of those things by paying them off, not through bankruptcy, and that takes many people a really long time.

Right now 64% of Montana students have college debt, and the average is $27,000, according to this February 2015 article in the Missoulian. That’s a lot of money, especially when we know graduates today won’t be making as much as their parents, and might not even be able to find a job. If they do find one, it’ll be like the Lee Enterprises jobs – half the pay that the previous occupant of the position used to get.

Employers can be part of the solution, however. There was an attempt to make things better for students during the 2015 Montana Legislature. House Bill 341 was introduced by Representative Bill Harris (R-Winnett) to “provide tax benefits to employers and students for higher education expenses.” The bill died in the standing committee on April 28.

So Montana students will see no relief for another two years, at the least. I like the idea of incentivizing employers to help tackle this problem, and I like that we have smart Republicans like Bill Harris in the legislature.

I think it really comes down to a generational divide here, on this student loan crisis we have in America.

On the one hand, we encourage students to go to school and get educations, even though there’s often no jobs for them at the end of that educational path.

Next, we charge students so much more than we did just a few decades ago, and there’s little rationale for this, other than ballooning administrative costs and employee pay.

Then, the quality of education hasn’t improved to justify those added and increased costs, and I know this firsthand from being in the basement of the UM Liberal Arts building, where it still said “No Smoking” on the wall and little else had changed since the 50s.

Finally, we’re at a huge competitive disadvantage compared to European countries and others that don’t burden their young generations with mountains of debt right when they’re getting out of the gate.

My wife has the equivalent of a Master’s degree from her Russian university, and she didn’t pay anything for that. The government paid for that. Yes, the Soviet government. And guess what? From the day she’s graduated, she hasn’t been paying banks, she’s been putting money into small businesses and other companies.

I don’t know who our current student loan debt model benefits.

I suppose it benefits the college student, as they couldn’t get an education without student loans, at least the vast majority of them.

It could benefit professors and anyone else that’s employed by Higher Education, for what else would these people do?

It certainly benefits banks and other financial institutions and lenders, for they get tons of interest payments. I paid $5,110.27 in interest alone since I’ve graduated.

I won’t pay anymore. I’m done, and the only reason for that is because of my family. That’s something that we don’t discuss a whole lot anymore – how much family still shoulders the burden of students in this country. Family is helping pay off student loans, maybe with $20 here or $100 extra there. So this is, in effect, cutting into the retirement savings of Americans, and possibly even contributing to some of them working longer. The problem perpetuates itself.

There was a good article on The Daily Signal in May 2015 called What Do Millennials Want From Washington? A Panel Examines. The article found that student debt is going to have serious long-term effects for us, and in ways that we don’t even think of.

Student debt loan, rising housing cost, and the development of a truly global economy were all cited as factors contributing to what Standard & Poor’s Beth Ann Bovino called a “failure to launch into full economic participation.” This failure, coupled with the fact that millennials are as conservative when it comes to spending as members of the “Silent Generation” (those living directly after the Great Depression), could cost the U.S. economy up to $244 billion over five years, according to McGraw Hill Financial.

I’m pretty conservative economically, and a large part of that comes from the student debt that I had for a long time. Before then, I had no real employment prospects because I had no education. Remember, I worked in restaurants for several years before I turned 24-years old and could get the maximum in Pell Grants, saving me from some of that student loan agony. Sadly, most don’t do this. Besides giving me a sense of what work is, it also broadened my horizons and got a little of the angst out of my system so I could go back to school successfully.

So we know that Millennials are going to be as conservative as the Silent Generation, at least if you go by that article. Is this good? Is this good for Democrats, or at least what Democrats are today nationally and in Montana?

The good news is that Montana Democrats have always been conservative, big time. This is a resource state, and when it comes to resources, you’re conservative. It’s also a state that’s dominated by weather cycles, something else that tends to make you conservative. We have a lot of entrepreneurs here and small business folks and self-employed people. They’re also conservative, because they have to go out and make money, and they don’t want a lot of hassle with that, or someone coming to take a piece of it after they worked so hard to make it from nothing.

Montana has always made stuff from nothing, at least if you don’t count the land and what’s already here. You can still pick up a pick and shovel and head out into the hills and find gold, though it is a lot harder to get affordable land. Even a century ago you could still get hundreds of acres for just a couple dollars each. Maybe the land wasn’t that good, but I don’t know anyone that’d walk away from it today, letting the state or feds take it back.

So people are conservative, and we know our younger generation will be too. They’ll sound more like me!

I’ve had a bit of my conservative thunder stolen with the paying off of my student loans. Before I could moan about being in debt, how the deck was stacked against me, and how I’d never be able to get ahead.

Now those arguments don’t hold much weight.

Suddenly, at the end of this month, I’ll have money in the bank. That’s amazing, because this is a six-month car insurance payment month, taking an extra $250 out of my budget.

Usually any extra ‘savings’ I had would be thrown at my debt. I made it a point to have no emergency fund or anything, as I wanted to get that student debt yoke from around my neck. I was really throwing money at it - $2,300 already this year, which is a lot for me – and I expected to keep doing so. I’d developed a plan to pay off each loan segment in turn, lowering my overall monthly payment. It was going to work.

And then it was done, like the wave of a magic wand.

I can’t identify much with younger people, and I guess I better stop calling myself one. The real dividing line between young and old will be if you’ve paid your student loans off or not. I have, and can no longer identify with the problems of the younger generation.

Suddenly I can start saving up for a house, or maybe buy a car. I could take a trip, or just start earning a fraction of a percent on an interest-bearing savings account.

I could also head back to school, get into a Master’s program, and get that debt right back.

Ha!

I’ll never go to the hallowed halls of academia again, unless they gave it to me for free. I feel that’s a huge loss for Montana, as I don’t know anyone my age that knows as much about the state’s history. Alas, we’ve said how little that matters to us – to get a PhD it’d probably cost me another $50,000 to $75,000, if not more.

That’s why people like me put out our own books, thumbing our noses at the university. Publish or perish, right?

The university is from a bygone era, an edifice to our past. It has no use for most, certainly not anyone attending, and is really only to prop up a whole class of useless people, our professors. You saw what these people are capable of with the mind-boggling letter to the Missoulian by UM French professor this week. Many of these people are worthless to society, but we trick you into thinking you need that education, as if French Baroque literature is going to help you put food on the table.

We’re moving in new directions in society, away from the old ways of doing things. Education isn’t as important anymore, because it’s just not affordable. Ignorance will become more acceptable, or library learning. Either way, you won’t see the bloated university system in another 20 years – that rose with the Baby Boomers and it’ll die with them.

I think that’s good, and most members of my generation and the younger ones do too. After all, we know the true costs all too well.

Funding for the University of Montana is Out of Whack (May 10, 2014)

Amanda Curtis Cares about Montana Students, Steve Daines Could Care Less (Sep 2, 2014)

A Look at the Student Loan Dilemma (April 16, 2015)

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The Montana GOP Convention Today: Rationalism Defeats Lunacy

6/27/2015

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Members get ready to vote (photo by Kristen Inbody)

Today in Helena at the Colonial Inn there was activity.

This isn’t the kind of activity that’s illegal, though it could lead to the erosion of liberties. That’s what happens when corporations take over America, and few are as supportive of their efforts as the Republican Party.

Today the Montana Republican Party was figuring out the best way to keep that corporate dominance intact. Yep, it was the 2015 Montana GOP Convention.

The convention started on Friday at 10 AM and it went until this afternoon pretty much, though it doesn’t officially end until 9:30 PM tonight.

Here’s what the official 2015 Montana Republican Convention Agenda looks like:

2015 Montana GOP Convention Agenda

As you can see, they have things like “Stay out of Trouble” workshops, which aren’t as bad as they sound. I think I went to one of those, given by Kim Trujillo of the Political Practices office.

There’s also meetings on Montana budgets (Llew Jones and Nancy Balance are giving those) and 2016 messaging (given by Shane Scanlon).

Ryan Zinke conducted the Freedom Forum with a freedom-loving guest from Texas, U.S. Representative Louis Gohmert.

I’m not sure what tickets cost, but I assume it was in the $60 range. I saw that a “display booth” ticket would run you $475. You know Montana Republicans don’t worry about money, however, except when it’s someone else’s and they try to figure out how to make it theirs (or their corporate overlords).

Kristin Inbody at the Great Falls Tribune figured there were more than 200 people at the convention when voting took place around 3:45 this afternoon. On the ballots were Will Deschamps, Jeff Essman, and Dan Happel, all competing for the main leadership post of the Montana Republican Party.

For the past five years, Deschamps has been Chairman of the Montana Republican Party, but Deschamps says the party needs to open up more, while Essman is even more on the fringe than Deschamps, saying the party needs to close ranks further. Deschamps wants to close ranks, something I don’t feel is good for a political party to do. I think Essman’s approach is the healthiest for the Montana GOP, but also the most dangerous for Montana Democrats and their chances at taking the 2017 Montana Legislature.

I wonder how the directorship of the Montana Republican Party plays into this as well. Bowen Greenwood was the director for more than 4 years before he stepped down after the 2014 elections, replaced by Chris Schipp in December. I wonder if Greenwood had a falling out with Deschamps or his direction and focus, and also how much Schipp adheres to Deschamps way of thinking.

It’s important to note that all of these men are old – Deschamps is 67; Essman, 62 – Shipp is 26-years old, and from the photos I saw of the convention today, there were no young people. Montana House Rep Ken Miller echoed this sentiment when he said “We should have this place full of young people.” He said that while nominating the 60-something Happel (I couldn’t find his age anywhere). He also made it a point that “Rand Paul could have” filled the Helena convention ‘hall’ with the young voters the Montana Republicans say they represent.

Let’s be honest – no one in Montana represents young people. Neither the old and antiquated GOP nor the aloof and clueless Democrats. The policies of both parties turn off young voters, so much so that they hardly ever vote!

Missoula Representative Bryce Bennett has probably come the closest to solving this, at least for the Democrats, when he effectively started Forward Montana a decade ago. Since then, however, it’s been a sad state of affairs for young people in Montana politics. I mean, even the GOP Young Guns weren’t there today!

Voting went until about 4:15 PM when something crazy happened – incumbent Will Deschamps was out, and it was now down to a runoff between Essman and Happel. Could the fringe candidate win…and which one?

I have to say, Essman was very active in his campaign. He had flyers made up, the professional yard-sign kind.

Jeff Essman posters at GOP Convention in 2015

He was very active on Twitter today, showing off PPT slides of his positions:

Jeff Essman GOP 2016 talking points

Montana's Jeff Essman Bio

I’m showing all these slides here because I think this guy is dangerous. He’s got ideas, after all, and isn’t afraid to shake up the usual way of doing things to make them come about. Montana Republicans thought so too – they elected him their party chairman at about 4:45 pm.

Now, is this good for Democrats? It’s good and bad.

First, it’s good for Montana because it means the Republicans will be stronger. Hey, lots of people are Republicans!

Next, it’ll be good for Democrats as they’ll have more ‘moderate’ and ‘responsible’ Republicans to work with. Those are the kinds that Essman claims he’s going to recruit.

Finally, it’ll again be good for Montana as some of those fringe elements of the GOP – Fielder and her land sell-offs, Wittich and his intransigence, and Laszoffy and his/her educational stance – can be pushed to the wayside…or off the state altogether.

Well, that’s the idea. Will any of this come about? Time will tell on that one. Time will also tell what the Democrats will do about it, though the wait won’t be too long. Their convention is sometime in August. I expect their leadership will remain the same. While that’s fine in the legislature, at the party level, I’m not sure it’ll be able to stand up against Essman’s growing machine.

I expect the showing for Democrats in 2017 will be worse than what it was in 2015. Again, we’ll just have to wait and see.

I would like to note that Greg Gianforte was at the convention, but did not speak. He spoke at the Chamber of Commerce yesterday, which was protested by a smattering of Helena retirees. According to Kristen Inbody, he was shaking hands and doing the ol’ meet-and-greet. So no announcement on a run for governor from him this weekend.

Overall, it wasn’t the crazed and headline-grabbing weekend Montana Democrats were hoping for. It was sane, orderly, and coordinated. That’s the stamp that Jeff Essman will make with the GOP, and Democrats should be nervous.

You might also like this June 23 interview with Jeff Essman.

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The 2016 Democratic Message in Montana

6/25/2015

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What’s the 2016 Democratic message?

I don’t know.

I have no idea, and it’s been that way for awhile. I know we need a message, I just don’t know what that message is…or really how to come up with one.

You know…I’m not alone. I think most everyone around the country has no idea what the Democratic message is in 2016, including the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

So we’ve got problems. What can be done? How about we play around and see what’s out there now for the 2016 Democratic message, while also coming up with a bit of our own?

One of the first things I always do when looking for something new is go to Google. I this case I just typed in “2016 Democratic Message,” while adding “2015” behind it to give me the most relevant results.

Google results for "2016 Democratic Message"

So there’s lots of news articles and opinions out there. Let’s go head and click on some.

In December 2014, Huffington Post had a story called What Democrats Stand For: Four Messages for 2016. Those messages were:

Fight for the Middle Class;
Fix the Broken Immigration System;
Address Global Climate Change;
Defend Affordable Healthcare.

“Attitudes about Obamacare are likely to be critical differentiators between the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates,” in the 2016 election, the article states. “It shouldn't be difficult for Democrats to remember what they stand for,” it then goes on to say. The messages Huffington Post put forth were “populist values” that “serve to differentiate the likely Democratic presidential candidate from any Republican.”

That remains to be seen, but they are starting points.

Yahoo News had some good analysis in December 2014 as well, in a post called Democrats go searching for a message ahead of 2016. It goes into some of the problems the Democrats face:

Being oppositional is something that unites the populist right and the left because of a now commonly held set of concurrent attitudes. While many Americans agree that economic prosperity is not reaching the middle class and the poor, most also don’t want more government. The public’s trust in the federal government has hit near-record lows in the past year or two, disillusionment that has been fed in the past few years by scandals at the Internal Revenue Service and the General Services Administration, and the disclosures of spying on Americans by the National Security Agency. That makes it much harder for Democrats to credibly propose a new course of government action, and hampers their ability to craft a compelling message reliant on using government for the common good.

The article makes some very valid points, especially about the tendency of Democrats around the country to focus on smaller, niche and minority issues that don’t have a wide appeal. While this might excite a portion of the base, it often alienates or fails to motivate swing and ‘regular’ voters:

In addition, many Democrats believe they focused too much on social issues in 2014. For example, in Colorado, incumbent Sen. Mark Udall focused almost exclusively on his opponents’ position on contraception in an attempt to win female voters, but lacked a bigger message and lost a state President Obama had won twice.

There’s also concern about a core group of the Democratic Party that’s not getting a lot of attention.

Bill Burton, a former top campaign and White House spokesman for Obama, said he is also concerned about the Democratic Party’s relationship with white working-class voters. “Democrats are not worried enough about [them],” he said.

“If we’re not attentive to the fact that we have a massive problem with middle-class white voters, we’re not going to solve our problem,” Burton said. “I’m worried that Democrats don’t see the problem. … The Republican coalition doesn’t look like America. It’s mostly just white people. But the Democratic one isn’t looking like America either, because there aren’t a lot of white people.”

The Democratic message is also “often birthed” in the political bubble, focusing “on things that are of secondary concern to many Americans.” We see this a lot here in Montana, where voters that have historically been Democrat can no longer identify with what their party is continuously shoving down their throats:

“People right now are feeling so much pressure on their pocketbook, and Washington is so disconnected from the reality of their lives. It’s the one place that never felt the downturn. It always feels when I’m up there like living in an alternative reality,” he said. “I’m for legalizing gay marriage and all these things, but I think sometimes we spend a lot of time talking about them to people who agree with us, but in the end, those aren’t the things being talked about at the dinner table.”

So what is being talked about at the dinner table? That’s what Democrats are trying to figure out, and on January 13, 2015, U.S. News & World Report had a story called House Dems Launch Messaging Committee. The article talks about the 13 U.S. House seats the Democrats lost, and also about their messaging problems.

"When you look at the polling, [it] shows a vast majority of Americans agree with our positions on virtually every issue, it's just that they don't always know that we have those positions," said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., the former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the chairman of a new 16-member group – the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee – formed to address outreach.

The article mentions how there are 80 million millennials but only 40 million showed up to the polls in 2014. That’s why “taking a more aggressive approach to social media outreach” is so important for “targeting new youth and minority voters.”

Isreal went on to say that there’s “going to be one message, and that's a message that's going to resonate with the American people.”

What that message is, the article doesn’t state.

The hunt for the 2016 Democratic message will continue.

On May 22, 2015, Roll Call had a post called Moderate Democrats Get Leadership’s Ear on 2016 Messaging. Steve Israel was back, talking about that damn message again. Did he get anywhere since January?

“Fundamentally, what we come down to is this: In order to win, you have to get people to vote for you who haven’t voted for you, and the only way to do that is with a message that resonates across a broad swath of voters,” Israel said. “You can’t keep doing the same thing to the same people. You have to resonate with people who may vote for you or may not vote for you.

“Our research and the New Dems’ research agree on the sense that voters have that the economy is changing quickly and [they] want tools to help them stay ahead, so we’re completely aligned on that,” he said. “Making sure we have an economic agenda that supports growth and prosperity for all. … New Dems have a very substantive, positive, solution-oriented agenda, and our data tells us we need to have the same.”

New Dems…I’m not sure what they are. Maybe he’s referring to the corporate sell-outs that are really no different from Republicans.

The article makes a point to note that the agenda of Israel is not “particularly contentious.” It’s said that Israel wants to “craft a narrative that can speak to as wide a reach of voters as possible.” Something else that’s important is a message where “a majority of [House Democratic Caucus] members can agree.”

Some of the key points of the 2016 Democratic message are:

Framing issues using inviting, non-incendiary language;
Overhauling the tax code;
Policies to boost scientific and technological innovation;
Making America more competitive;

The problem is progressives, who will mung up this message big time.

The article calls these folks people “who want to see the party take more aggressive stands on the environment, women’s rights and minority issues” and they’ll “balk at seeing leadership” push the above issues. What’s more, they’re intent on using the term “liberal” and pushing “policies that fall clearly on the left of the political spectrum.”

So you have a lot of competing voices trying to shape that 2016 Democratic message, and that’s probably why it’s taking so long to come up with that message. Worse, Democrats are worrying the party may split, with the progressive wing supporting fringe candidates in primaries, third-party candidates in the general, or no one, staying home in protest instead. “Progressives and moderates caucus have already clashed this year,” the article says, “pointing fingers at each other over November’s midterm elections,” the ones “that gave Democrats their smallest House minority in almost a century.”

It’s pointed out at the tail-end of that Roll Call article that the 2006 Democratic message didn’t come out until two months before the election. There’s still plenty of time then. But you know what? I’m getting tired of waiting. I’m getting tired of that D.C. bubble trying to figure out what I need – I already know what I need!

Let’s look at some ideas that Montana Democrats can get behind. While this isn’t a firm message, it is one that can be chipped away at.

Raise the Minimum Wage: We keep talking about this and we point to certain cities. Why not just stop spending so much on $13 billion aircraft carriers and make that happen?

Legalize Marijuana: This should be a no-brainer, but a lot of people still have hang-ups. They don’t like that people can do what they want behind closed doors, and feel the government should intrude into their lives. I feel that should end, so let’s let people smoke pot.

Build Infrastructure: Roads, bridges, high speed rail…Americans want this stuff. You know who doesn’t? Large corporations and offshore account holders. They’d end up paying a large portion, and it bothers them. Doesn’t bother me – let’s do it.

Tackle Student Debt: America and Americans just can’t compete on the world stage. We can’t make big purchases and we can’t save for retirement. All our money goes to debt. How about we just start talking about this, which we’re not doing at all?

Environment – Change You Can See

This is a great slogan we should adopt so people can feel good. This could include things like:

Getting rid of plastic bags
No more smelling diesel when you’re driving (bio fuels)
We’ll make your home energy efficient

People can get excited about things like that, a lot more than “overhauling the tax code” (Boring!) Yeah, people want to be entertained, they want to have fun, and they want to feel like their life is changing. If you can make them feel that way, they’ll vote.

I hope the Montana Democratic Party considers some of these ideas. If it has any others…I’m all ears.

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Hiking to Montana’s Glen Lake

6/25/2015

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On Sunday I hiked up to Glen Lake.

Glen Lake is located between Victor and Stevensville in the Bitterroot Valley. More precisely, it’s in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which is more than 1.3 million acres of roadless forest area along the Montana-Idaho border. The area was created in 1964 with the Wilderness Act and is one of the largest wilderness area in the country.

Map of Glen Lake Area in Montana

Glen Lake is just one of many lakes in the area. Wikipedia lists 126 lakes in Ravalli County. Many of them are high alpine lakes like Glen Lake, formed eons ago by glaciers and now collecting rainwater and runoff.

You can find some Glen Lake images on this Summit Post article about Glen Lake and another one on the site that shows Hidden Lake. You can also find a bit of information on the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness here.

For now, let’s get into some pictures I took.

You turn off Highway 93 at Bell Crossing and steadily climb higher and higher up some old forest roads.

Views of the Bitterroot Valley open up before you.

The roads up to Glen Lake are windy and narrow, with steep drop-offs on one side.

This is what the Glen Lake Trailhead looks like.

Burned forest Near Glen Lake

The reason things are burned so badly and every thing looks dead is because of the 2006 Gash Creek fire. It plunged through the area on August 24 and eventually burned 8,500 acres. The view from the valley floor was spectacular, with the fire trapped in the glacial cirque and shooting forth flames like a volcano would spew forth lava.

Reminders of the 2006 Gash Creek Fire

Most fires jump about and leave little pockets of green. Also, there's a small stream that runs through here from the lakes up above.

You'll see a lot of these warped trees. This happens when the fire rushes through here. They remind me a lot of hornet's nests.

The higher you get, the more the views open up.

Gnash Point in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the way up to Glen Lake

The trail marker

This is looking north, toward another peak

When you get here, you're getting very close to Glen Lake. The lake is just on the other side of that green hill on the right

You'll probably be as ready for the lake and surprised it pops out at you as I was

Glen Lake

Montana's Glen Lake

Glen Lake looking south

Middle section of Glen Lake. You can't walk all the way around the lake because of that steep side there.

Northern half of Glen lake

I would suggest taking some lunch after the long hike of 5 miles, most of it uphill.

Most people don’t go past Glen Lake, and I didn’t either. The reason is simple – the trail is terrible, as in you can’t see it. But honestly, you don’t need it because you can follow that small brook up to its source, which is Hidden Lake.

Trail to Hidden Lake, above and 2 miles on from Glen Lake

Just follow this brook - you'll get to the upper lakes, located two miles further on.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that Hidden Lake is in fact two lakes. They look like one on maps, but they’re separated by a couple dozen feet and connected only by a small stream.

The lakes, as well as Glen Lake, are surrounded by rock pinnacles, which are called gendarmes. The top of these rocks are called arêtes, which means a sharp mountain ridge. They look like jagged teeth, perhaps the kind you’d see on an old and rusted saw.

A 2012 blog called Montana Bushcraft and Country Living has a lot of great images of Glen Lake, plus some images of Hidden Lake.

Montana's Hidden Lake above Glen Lake (click for link)

I spent $0 on Sunday and just a little gas. I left Missoula at 2 PM, got to the trailhead at about 3:15, and was at Glen Lake itself around 4:30. I was back at my car at 5:30 and then back in Missoula at 7 PM.

What are you waiting for? Get out and explore Montana!

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Fast Track, TPP, and Montana Politics (Podcast)

6/24/2015

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Leaders of TPP Countries

This is a political podcast that might offend you.

TPP (1:14)

Fast Track;
Congress/Obama;
Corporations;
American Jobs.

Montana Angle (4:10)

Senator Tester
Senator Daines (5:00)
Governor Bullock (5:30)
John Walsh (6:10)
2016 (6:30)

Campaigning (7:20)

Strategy
Book
Tactics

Media (9:20)

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Two Montana Newspaper Reporter Positions Available

6/24/2015

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Out with the old, in with the new.

It was revealed on Twitter today that the old Johnson/Dennison positions at Lee Enterprises are up for grabs.

I think I’ll apply. Let’s take a look at what this entails.

Both of these new reporters “will serve five Lee Montana properties,” the ad says, and those are The Ravalli Republic, The Missoulian, The Helena Independent Record, The Montana Standard and The Billings Gazette. The first job is called “State reporter (narrative and news feature)”

The job description says that someone who “can unearth the journalistic treasures in the Treasure State” and has a “storytelling style that matches the unique nature of Montana,” is what they’re looking for.

Personally, I would have avoided the repetition of “treasures in the Treasure State” myself, but that’s just an element of style. I would also like to be filled in more on this “unique nature of Montana,” or to put it more bluntly, for someone to tell me what the hell this is. I suppose if you’re applying for the job, however, you should know this, or at least be darn good at pretending you do.

It’s also critical that this new reporter has “a narrative voice that’s as smooth as Neversweat Bourbon.” Wow, was the boss at the Filipino copywriting center away with his mistress again? How’d that get in there!

One reason I know I’d be good at this job is because we’re looking at “the day’s or year’s most pressing issue” so that we can “examine how it affects Montanans.” I like looking at pressing issues and examining them, and you know that from the stuff you’ve read on this site, which doesn’t have the same length limitations as the newspapers do. Still, it’s hard to pick a single “most pressing issue” for the year.

I like the fact that the “candidate can live anywhere in the state” and that they need to be “extremely well organized.”

With the internet, it’s also pretty easy to “work remotely with several newsrooms” so that they can get “incisive, accurate and timely copy.” And of course you know that anyone taking this job will be “digitally savvy enough to build an audience that spans the state.” Young people have no problem with “mastery of digital tools” and I think we all know that.

The next position is called “State reporter (data/ investigative emphasis).” This job requires “a person who understands issues and trends,” happening each day locally and nationally, one who “can turn them into stories that matter to the diverse folks of the Treasure State.”

The applicant also shouldn’t be “afraid to leave the office to talk to people across the state,” even its “far-flung corners.”

This position is the one that will be in Helena, I’m almost positive. “While this reporter can live anywhere in the state,” the ad claims, “we will give strong consideration to their proximity to Helena, the state’s capital, and nerve center for politics.”

It’s clear in both ads that these jobs are interrelated. “This reporter will work as a member of a two-person team,” the ads mention frequently.

After that, both jobs are pretty much identical.

So should I apply? Hell, why not? I write about this stuff everyday anyways, and I do it in a more entertaining, thought-provoking, and informative way than most in the state. Plus I’m willing to work for peanuts, and since that’s all that Lee Enterprises is offering, it works out well.

Well, let’s be honest – they give benefits. That means healthcare. Right now lots of younger people like me don’t have that, so that’s a bonus.

So what would I do? I guess I’d have to dust off my resume and type up a new cover letter (this post will serve as a good rough draft). Then I need to get “three professional references.”

Damn, this is always the part that gets me.

First of all, for five years I was out of the country;

Next, the references I do have are super old;

Finally, none of them really pertain to this job.

So that’s a problem. One reference letter I have is from 2001. Another is from 2010, and written by a Chinese person that can’t write that well. The third is…well, that’s it – I don’t have a third.

Maybe I can call up UM Campus Fitness and Recreation and get my old boss there to write one. I was a pretty good window cleaner.

Restaurants are never a good bet, as I’m sure all of my old bosses at those places would have headed for greener pastures by now…I hope.

The reviews and testimonials I have on my Services Page just don’t seem appropriate for this job, although contacting some of them by email could be an option.

So that’s where I’m at – the reference letter stage. If I had those all collected, I could shoot this resume off to the Billings office and be done with it.

Would I get the job?

I doubt it. I applied to the Missoula Independent a month ago and there was no interest there.

I think other reporters would be intimidated by me and my knowledge of the state. Resentment would set in at the level of work I’m able to maintain. I’d start to make the long-time employees look bad with my output and quality. Dissension would form in the ranks. Management would be blamed. The stock price would fall. Layoffs…bankruptcy…Armageddon.

Now that I think about it, maybe these two jobs are best left to the “professionals.”

Quality Montana Reporters (May 9, 2015)

Montana to Lose Two Great Reporters (May 21, 2015)

How Many People in Montana Read Newspapers? (Oct 8, 2014)

Looking at Montana Newspapers and Readership (Feb 1, 2015)

Tired of Paying for News? Get it for Free Each Month with these 25 Montana Media Sites (May 23, 2015)

Looking at Montana Newspapers and Media Strife (June 14, 2015)

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Can the Montana AFL-CIO Convention Help You at All?

6/22/2015

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Yesterday the Montana AFL-CIO 3-Day convention kicked off at Fairmont Hot Springs.

The Montana AFL-CIO is the state chapter of the AFL-CIO, which is the American Federation of Labor and the Congress for Industrial Organizations. The AFL started in 1886.

In 1934 and 1935 American workers felt they weren’t being represented by the largest of the nation’s unions, the American Federation of Labor, and began to form smaller unions. The AFL saw the writing on the wall and combined these fledgling unions into the Committee for Industrial Organization, or CIO.

It was in the fall of 1937 that the AFL “expelled” the CIO. The CIO had 4 million members at the time and changed its name to the Congress for Industrial Organizations. It wasn’t until 1955 that the two organizations merged again.

Beginning in 2003, things started to go south for the AFL-CIO. Leadership began to argue over the direction the union should take, and this resulted in a split and the formation of the New Unity Partnership (NUP).

By 2005 the New Unity Partnership had morphed into the Change to Win Federation (CtW). They took their 5.4 million members and broke off from the AFL-CIO, taking some of the largest unions in the organization with them. These included the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The Service Employees International Union left as well, calling leadership “pale, male, and stale.” By early 2006 the United Farm Workers and UNITE HERE, a union of service industry workers, also broke off. That summer the Laborers’ International Union of North America joined them.

Why was there so much turmoil with the AFL-CIO in the mid-2000s?

Most of the problems can be traced to incoming AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who took over in the 90s. No one much liked his leadership, and by 2005 the unions started to bolt.

Things were bad. The AFL-CIO lost a ton of members and a ton of money. But the other unions weren’t doing that well either. Beginning in 2009 and 2010, many started to come back. Still, the damage was done, mistrust had been sown, and many felt that things would never be the same again.

I hope things will never be the same again for Montana’s workers after this week’s AFL-CIO convention, but I know that’s silly talk.

I’m not so sure the convention will be able to help many Montana workers, to be completely honest. In fact, I don’t think it will do anything…unless you count making the union brass feel like they’re doing something. They’re not, but we’ll get to that a little later.

The AFL-CIO has 11.6 million members today and $93 million in assets to play around with. They have a total of 459 employees in the organization, with at least 3 to 5 in Montana (I can’t tell with all the board members, and honestly, I’m not sure what some positions even do).

In 2005 before the split the AFL-CIO had 13.7 million members. That dropped to 9.8 million in 2006.

The organization is spending a lot more despite this substantial drop in both members and earnings. In 2002 they spent $76 million but in 2013 that was up to $192 million. Income has kept pace with that, though where that income is coming from I’m not sure. Well, hold on…it’s coming from workers.

In 2002 the AFL-CIO was getting $6 per member but in 2013 that was up to $17. What are members paying nearly 3 times as much for?

Well, according to the Membership Benefits section of their website, members can get “credit cards, scholarships, mortgages, legal services and more.”

Wow, just what I always wanted. Sorry if I sound a little disrespectful, but show me the money. Thankfully, the AFL-CIO does. Non-union workers make about $763 a week while unionized workers take home $970 a week. Sounds like a lot, but it’s not.

There are only 14.6 million Americans in unions anymore, or just 11.1% of the workforce, according to the 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1983, the first year of statistics, there were 17.7 million union members, or 20.1% of the workforce. In the 1950s it was nearly 30% of the workforce. Now compare that to Canada where 26% of workers are unionized, or Germany where 40% are, or even Finland, which has 70% of its workers unionized.

Private sector workers are unionized just 6.6% of the time, compared to the 35.7% that public workers are unionized. There are 11.7% of men in unions while just 10.5% of women are in one.

The reason I know the Montana AFL-CIO convention won’t help you is because the union is so small in this state. Honestly, I can’t even find the exact membership number, and their communications director refuses to give it to me.

I have to assume the numbers are quite low, therefore. It’s just that the unions don’t make it that easy to research them, and I feel that’s because they’re mistrustful. They’re paranoid organizations, always figuring people are out to hurt them, not help them. I guess you can’t blame them – for decades greed-filled employers have been trying to crack their workers’ heads. So they trust no one.

So what do Montana union numbers look like?

We know the state has 52,000 unionized workers. In 2014 Montana had 414,000 workers and 52,000 were in unions, or 12.7%. If you want to look at those represented by unions but not members, it goes up to 57,000, or 13.8% of the workforce.

How does that break down?

MEA-MFT, the teacher’s union, has 18,000 members;

The Teamsters have two chapters in Montana, the Butte Teamsters and the Billings Teamsters. There are 358 Teamster chapters in the US, with 1.4 million members. For the most part, this union falls under the purview of the AFL-CIO.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has more than 1.3 million members in America, primarily grocery store workers. Why aren’t they in Montana?

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has 1.6 million members in the country. I’m not sure how many they have in Montana, but they’re heavily affiliated with the AFL-CIO in the state.

That’s about all I found. So the Montana AFL-CIO could have 34,000 members, although I don’t think it’s that high. Even if it was, that would only be 8.2% of Montana’s workforce that this organization represents.

So when I ask the question, can the Montana AFL-CIO convention help you at all, I think we know the answer is no.

You’re not in that union, most likely, just like most Montana workers aren’t. Most Montana workers aren’t in any unions, and I’m not sure that’s seen as a problem. I think it is – I’ve been saying for months that we need our 100,000+ strong tourism industry workforce unionized, both because it’ll put more money into our local communities and it’ll create a very powerful voting bloc that favors Democrats.

As usual, no one is interested in hearing my ideas.

I just don’t feel that Montana wants anymore unions, and I feel that Montana’s current unions share that sentiment. That’s my opinion, and since I see no action on the part of Montana unions to see more workers unionized, or different economic sectors unionized, I have to think that.

But can you blame them? Most union jobs are in “education, training, and library occupations and protective service occupations,” according to the 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics Report (PDF), and this makes up 35.3% of all the union workers. “Sales and related occupations,” the kind of jobs that are growing swiftly in Montana, make up just 3.1% of unionized workers.

Most union workers are old, with 28% between the ages of 45 and 64. So that reflects Montana, but not the kind of jobs we’re growing, which are service industry jobs. Just 21.6% of Montana union workers are between the ages of 25 and 44.

Just 13.6% of healthcare workers are unionized, and 11.5% of service occupations.

Only 4.7% of food preparation workers are unionized, and just 7.2% of sales workers.

There are 2.6% of financial service industry workers unionized and 3.2% of the leisure and hospitality industry.

These are the industries we have in Montana, but they’re not unionized. Why?

The Center for Union Facts has a lot of information, but you have to realize that this organization is very anti-union. I’m not anti-union, but I am anti-union when unions aren’t looking out for workers. And I’m sorry, but saying that you don’t represent those industries or sectors of the economy is not good enough. You’re a union, damn it – fight to represent them!

Of course, fighting to represent workers like fast food workers or service industry workers or retail workers isn’t worth the time and effort. On top of it, it very well could take away from the immense amount of profits union leaders enjoy. We see those profits at work over these three days at the hot springs.

And let’s not forget that split in 2005. Union brass is deathly afraid something like that might happen again, especially if they start focusing on younger workers at the ‘expense’ of their older workers. And let’s not even get into the levels of animosity felt by non-unionized workers toward those that are ‘fortunate’ enough to be in unions. Most of us Montana workers aren’t in the right industries, however, so we’re useless to the AFL-CIO.

It’s no surprise that unions stopped working for workers in Montana. I profiled long ago how nincompoop Eric Feaver makes $125,000 working for MEA-MFT, the teacher’s union in the state. I find that reprehensible, but most just look the other way. Well, when your boss will fire you for speaking out against stuff like that, what can you do?

The AFL-CIO is the same way – if you say anything against a union, you’re their enemy, not their friend. They’ll use that argument each time executive pay is brought up, all the way until the only members of the union are executives. That won’t work really well, because they’ll balk at paying themselves, unlike the workers, who never balk at what the top brass is paid. Al Ekblad is the president of the Montana AFL-CIO. I’m not sure what he’s paid, but it’s probably a lot.

But again, if you question this, you’re through. It’s a shame what unions have become in this country – facades, fakes, and relics of a bygone day when workers could actually expect to get ahead. Those days are gone, and far from crying out against it, the union bosses try to take as much as they can for themselves, the worker be damned.

There’s a total of 189,217 union officers and staff members in America, and collectively they make $1.14 billion in compensation each year. Union employees, on the other hand, make $2.49 billion each year. That comes out to $170.55 for each union worker and $6,024.83 for each union official.

Can the Montana AFL-CIO convention help you at all? Well, are you a top official? Then it will help you, both by wining and dining you and congratulating you on a job well done.

If you’re a Montana worker, however, the convention will do nothing for you, nothing at all.

Notes

Boardman, Fon W. Jr. The Thirties: American and the Great Depression. Henry Z. Walck, Inc.: New York, 1967. p 91-2.

Franklin, Stephen. “A Brief History of Labor Unsolidarity: AFL-CIO and Change to Win.” In These Times. Web. 26 August 2010. Retrieved 22 June 2015. http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6369/a_brief_history_of_labor_unsolidarity

Kutalik, Chris. “What Does the AFL-CIO Split Mean?” Labor Notes. Web. 31 August 2005. Retrieved 22 June 2015. http://www.labornotes.org/2005/08/what-does-afl-cio-split-mean

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