Boy, we sure are dumb, aren’t we? I mean, here in Montana it’s fool me once and then just keep on fooling me.
Today it was reported that Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl won’t be filing any charges against Stanford or Dartmouth for their role in those shady Montana supreme court mailings.
Now, the stipulation that no charges would be filed was made clear yesterday, when Motl said that if the two institutions merely sent out another letter to those same people telling them they were sorry, well gosh darn, everything’d be peaches and cream again!
I saw this today and I immediately thought of the famous speech scene from 1949’s All The King’s Men, which won Best Picture that year, and Best Actor:
Today it was reported that Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl won’t be filing any charges against Stanford or Dartmouth for their role in those shady Montana supreme court mailings.
Now, the stipulation that no charges would be filed was made clear yesterday, when Motl said that if the two institutions merely sent out another letter to those same people telling them they were sorry, well gosh darn, everything’d be peaches and cream again!
I saw this today and I immediately thought of the famous speech scene from 1949’s All The King’s Men, which won Best Picture that year, and Best Actor:
If you watch that scene you’ll see that man cajole those people into action, and that means voting. And he does this by telling them how ignorant and stupid they are for allowing themselves to be taken advantage of for so long.
The people of Montana have allowed themselves to be taken advantage of since Day 1. I suppose you can say that was back in the late 1700s when Europeans first came, or maybe you could say it was those first smallpox epidemics in the early 1800s. Perhaps it was the robber barons coming around the 1870s and 1880s, or maybe it was when a good many of them left in the 1920s, taking most of their jobs with them.
It could be a lot of things, and it is, and there’s more than I can possibly say here, but it’s clear that Montana has been taken advantage of yet again.
And what can we do? A whole lot of nothing. Eat bitterness, that’s what I do – I have a heaping portion of it each and every morning.
For how are you not to be bitter when the same old story plays across the page day and day again, year in and year out?
Those rich fat cats and Wall Street bankers back East and in California are just licking their lips and wringing their hands and hugging themselves they're so giddy – Montana fell for it, and holy hell, those dumb hicks’ll fall for it again.
This is just terrible, but again, what can be done? Flathead Memo and Montana Cowgirl and now a lot of other blogs in other states and even our Sleeping Beauties (the state newspapers) are getting into the act.
But nothing has been found, no dirt has been dug up, and those three to four complaints that Montana Secretary of State Linda McCullough filed on Friday have gone nowhere.
I feel as though allowing Stanford and Dartmouth to send out an apology letter is setting a terrible precedent, one that says anytime someone comes in here and pushes us around and, oh, perhaps just bends the law, can do it again.
Because that’s what this says, don’t you think for one second that it’s otherwise.
What’s happening right now is a travesty, a simple travesty of justice. Oh - will we ever learn?
The people of Montana have allowed themselves to be taken advantage of since Day 1. I suppose you can say that was back in the late 1700s when Europeans first came, or maybe you could say it was those first smallpox epidemics in the early 1800s. Perhaps it was the robber barons coming around the 1870s and 1880s, or maybe it was when a good many of them left in the 1920s, taking most of their jobs with them.
It could be a lot of things, and it is, and there’s more than I can possibly say here, but it’s clear that Montana has been taken advantage of yet again.
And what can we do? A whole lot of nothing. Eat bitterness, that’s what I do – I have a heaping portion of it each and every morning.
For how are you not to be bitter when the same old story plays across the page day and day again, year in and year out?
Those rich fat cats and Wall Street bankers back East and in California are just licking their lips and wringing their hands and hugging themselves they're so giddy – Montana fell for it, and holy hell, those dumb hicks’ll fall for it again.
This is just terrible, but again, what can be done? Flathead Memo and Montana Cowgirl and now a lot of other blogs in other states and even our Sleeping Beauties (the state newspapers) are getting into the act.
But nothing has been found, no dirt has been dug up, and those three to four complaints that Montana Secretary of State Linda McCullough filed on Friday have gone nowhere.
I feel as though allowing Stanford and Dartmouth to send out an apology letter is setting a terrible precedent, one that says anytime someone comes in here and pushes us around and, oh, perhaps just bends the law, can do it again.
Because that’s what this says, don’t you think for one second that it’s otherwise.
What’s happening right now is a travesty, a simple travesty of justice. Oh - will we ever learn?
