The same symbolism from "Mission Accomplished" is used by Trump. Republicans just want us to forget about it: 

John Frum

Trump is a Wovoka-John Frum to a crisis cult of a desperate frightened, formerly secure middle class and construction boom workers. The evangelicals who follow him are already a crisis cult believing in a "Magic Jesus", so it isn't a great leap for them. Instead of miracle redemption, they seek security in an imaginary world that never existed. They dance to bring back the ancestors of economic security and community. But you see where magical thinking leads; to a leadership of wealth by fraud thieves whose oligarchy consists of megachurch prosperity gospel preaching hucksters, public trough feeding two legged swine and a career criminal whose wealth management strategy is getting his hand in your pocket. The rest are people doing well, wanting to maintain their status in an authoritarian, military-industrial wing sucking blood out of the empire. They wave flags and crosses to keep us from the anarchists; they are our Freikorps. But please don't apply the converse as a solution. While the Clinton-Obamas did treat ordinary people better...such as trying to get people health care among other things, Clinton eliminated the social safety net, ended Glass-Steagall and pushed through NAFTA. Obama did help millions with health care, but he let millions of people lose their homes while pumping Trillions to prop up the organized crime syndicate we call banks to cover their gambling debts. Both groups loved bombs and drones as much as any other, but unlike the Bushites, understood you needed to do things in secret without committing entire divisions lest the populace become restless at the death count. There's no wonder people flock to these charlatans...they need some sort of hope, no matter how imaginary.

Clarity

In one way, I think some of Trump's proposed appointees are definitely more honest than those previous. Our foreign policy has been driven by oil since the end of WW 1, so why not have an oil executive? At least the purpose is clear. And having fire breathing military officers in various positions? Why not? We have the largest military in the world by far, over 800 foreign installations (One other country has ONE) and it is over 50% of our national budget. We have troops, right now, in 136 countries and covert operators in 134. We sell and hand out arms to everyone, and fund or back some of the more notorious psychopaths on the planet. Hell, we employ remote controlled drones to kill civilians in other countries. And, frankly, we have been in a new cold war with Russia for several years in addition to breaking the first Bush promises not to expand NATO eastward. The CIA and the Dept. of State backed (and still are operating) the Ukrainian nationalists in Western Ukraine right on their borders. Any complaint of Russian operations is laughable. Housing and Urban Development has been defunded for decades, so wanting to place an incompetent boob is hardly new. The other's...well...we have been an oligarchy bought and sold for a while now, and the Republican party is more or less a wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch Brothers in many states. The quasi-military power used to defend a corporation is definitely not new, but usually it is happening in Peru, or Guatemala, or Honduras rather than North Dakota. But then again, what the hell were the Indian wars other than a front for the railroads and the giant land giveaway to them? I really don't see why people are shocked. If you have read anything truthful about our history, this is nothing new. George Washington was nothing more than a real estate speculator in the Ohio River Valley and his officers were paid off with land grants there. You live in an empire. You always have.

Russia

There is strong evidence that some of the fake campaign news originated from Russia. It isn't as if there wasn't an interest for it, as it would be Putin's payback for the U.S State Dept. operations in Ukraine and the constant expansion of NATO right up to the Russian borders in what has been essentially a new cold war. They know full well how to manipulate authoritarian followers minds, which are very different than much of the population. Authoritarian followers do not operate by reason, but by emotional drives, so arguing factually with them is pointless. They could be present and watching as something that doesn't agree with their prejudices happens in front of them and they would still come to the conclusion that fits their preset assumptions about the world. Don't bother reasoning with or getting angry with his and their traditional followers. They are not factually based. Tradition and security override all reason subconsciously. That is why outsiders sit dumbfounded thinking " Don't they see it?" He (Trump) understands this fully, and that is why he made the statement " I could shoot somebody and not lose voters." Trump, frankly, is modeling his candidacy and governing style after Putin, as he is and has always been a kleptocrat with an admiration for authoritarian rulers. He used the oldest authoritarian tricks there are, fear, fear of outside groups and the anger that comes from it and old archetypal symbols and language . It is all sitting right in front of us, as obvious as it can be. Considering his history, and the history of the Republicans glad to serve with him and join his power, we should be ready for the grandest thievery we have ever seen. Their entire goal will be to extract as much as they can from the public and now they have no limitations other than organized resistance outside of the traditional channels. They will not shrink or limit government, but activate it in the direction they desire, most of it targeted at extracting wealth in some form or another. Our military-industrial complex, already the world's largest, will continue to expand and drain the resources of the country more than it already has. The reason the establishment figures within the National Security State came out so strong for Clinton is she operated within and understood the monstrous, society draining apparatus that it is. Their problem is they understood fully the implications of the monster they had, and they had used the very same methods to create and support it within the population. From Reagan's evil empire and welfare queens, Bush's Willie Horton and Saddam Hussein, we how have terrorists as blowback created by our operations within the Mideast and Mexican's as economic refugees from NAFTA. They created this and have tried to manage it, and now this usurper, using the same methods they have used, not only likely accepted their enemy's aid, but modeled himself after him. They built the many headed monster, and now this ignorant, puppet lunatic was going to be in charge along with a gaggle of crazies who'd all sat on the outskirts. Despite the inherent evil of the empire, and the size of it's internal institutions, they ( Whether Clintonites or people within the security apparatus in general) are at least rationally based. They know global warming is real, and that the models for sustaining current populations at these levels of resource use doom future humans. Trump and his crazies are not rational and do not understand this, as they are nothing but self-interested thieves who cannot assimilate factual information. As Chalmers Johnson and other writers have stated for ages, you cannot be a republic and an empire, and we have been an empire since the revolutionary war, and especially since World War II. FDR might have been our Augustus, but we now have our Caligula, and he was likely helped along with help from Alaric I. Our problem is the empire is much bigger and so are the problems. This is not the sack of Rome, but the fall of American society by internal means, and perhaps risks human civilization.

There was no victory, and there isn't a mandate.

There was no victory, and there isn't a mandate.

As we stand today, Hilary Clinton now has a large lead in the popular vote. For the fourth time in our history, the majority of U.S. Citizens will now be forced to legally endure policies they did not vote for. The last time was the year 2000, and considering the results of the two Bush II administrations, we should pray it ends better.

In all likelihood it will be worse, considering the candidate now given power.

The electoral college, designed to buffer smaller states and/or allow intervention in case of a lunatic being elected, is an artifact now cursing the majority of Americans. And in many ways it did as it was designed to do, to give enhanced power of a minority of states, and minorities within those states, to decide what is good for the rest of us.

While some claim this is somehow the voice of “forgotten Americans”, those doing should be reminded of some obvious facts. The majority of American's did not vote for the policies. There are still more Democratic voters than Republican voters, and surveys consistently show strong majority support for progressive policies and not those of the Republicans or the right wing.

Additionally, other salient points deserve mention. The unprecedented amount of money spent to support Republican candidates. The voter suppression methods enacted after the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act in various states. The more subtle methods of voter suppression, such as limiting poll places and machines in Democratic areas. The voter roll purge fraud using the Interstate Crosscheck system. The gerrymandering of districts by Republicans in states after the 2010 elections, which will likely be affecting voting until 2030. All of these affect vote totals that in reality, despite the efforts, still could not produce a majority for the Republican candidate.

It must also be remembered that there was a deliberate strategy to create mass frustration by not allowing any progressive initiative forward. They have held the house since 2010, and have not let any possible useful legislation forward.. For example, both the 2009 stimulus and the Affordable Care Act were resisted fanatically and limited by right wing political attacks. Finally, the last two times the Republicans have ruled, they have robbed the country blind leaving the two Democratic administrations to clean up the fiscal mess and limiting possible progressive program responses to people's difficulties. Both ended in massive fraud and recession. Corporate media, of course, casually forgets this fact, as if history ended a week ago.

Progressives need to remember this and ignore the inane arguments presented that somehow “they should agree to what the majority desired”, as it simply wasn't the case. Ultimately, this was still an election won by the Koch Brothers and other large donors using tricks, political strategy and oodles of ash to create a victory by game, rather than a win by majority.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold: W.B. Yeats

While the internal debate about the campaign and Hilary as a flawed candidate (which she was) and the DNC machinations is important, there are other factors to analyze and remember.

1: Ignoring the white working class. Thomas Frank, Christopher Hedges and Michael Moore have written extensively about this.

2: It should still be remembered that any attempt forward in the first two years of the Obama administration was met with absolute resistance. For example, the stimulus bill (ARRA) was limited purely by politics, and not by the claimed fiscal concerns of Republicans who spent freely beforehand. What would the recovery have looked like if the stimulus had been 500 billion more of infrastructure modernization and repair with a buy only American products policy? What if there had been a student loan forgiveness package as advocated by more than one economist? What would millions of people having hundreds of dollars more spendable cash per month done for the last five years? Obamacare itself was a war fought with every means necessary including a massive propaganda campaign by the right against it. There was a strategic reason for how the republicans were acting and we see it now. It was to raise anger.

This is a recent historical pattern. Both the Reagan-Bush and Bush II administrations were fiscally insane, ended in massive fraud, economic recession and limited the following Democratic administration's ability to move forward. At the same time, republican's refused to govern, instead acting as an insurgency funded by the crazed elite of the corporate right wing. Some have suggested this has been deliberate strategy. It likely is. It is easier to rob the place blind during a crisis and they have done that both times.

This is a lesson going all the way back to the first Clinton Administration, when Bill Clinton came in wanting to do a large social-economic package. When his advisors walked in, they told him (paraphrasing).." we can't...we have all the deficit obligations left over from Reagan and Bush."  Obama was limited both by fiscal necessity from the insane Bush years and and an opponent not interested in governing, but in regaining power no matter the consequence. See Norm Ornstein.

We forget that since 2010, the House has been republican and essentially nothing has been done nor have the democrats had the power.

3: Voter Suppression: Since the Voting Rights act ruling by the Supreme Court, many republican controlled states have engaged in voter roll hi jinks to limit democratic voters. North Carolina is but one example. There are other well documented ways of limiting voting, from voter id laws, difficult methods of registration and simply limiting voting facilities in certain areas. Ohio is a perfect example of the latter.

4: This is not to excuse the Centrist democrats including Clinton who helped march through deregulation. The trade agreements are best described as investor rights agreements for multi-nationals. Many of the Mexican illegals are derived from the former corn farmers of Mexico who under Nafta were subject to the United States subsidized agribusiness and are now simply economic refugees.

5: Technology is reducing the needed workforce. The fact is we just need less people to operate larger plants or operations. So, places that once had sawmills employing hundreds or mines employing thousands just don't exist. That sort of manufacturing will not happen again. The problem is there has been no direct response to this that meets people's needs. There are now millions of people who are no longer in their former workforce simply because of technology, but our system does not provide them with an income regardless of their situation. There is no guaranteed minimum income. In rural areas,  the smaller former regional agricultural centers are really hurt by the shrunken farm labor force and families, but there is no magic bullet to replace the former service industries in these towns. The Iron Range is a perfect example. In 1979 there were about 14,500 steelworkers there. Now there are less then 4000. All of this is from technology and forced market competition and not regulation. Any newer proposed operations use less manpower. I have two friends who drive production trucks and I repeatedly warn them they will likely be replaced by remote technology with one person watching  several trucks guided by robot algorithms within ten years.What will they do?

6: There was still enormous money spent by the right on their favored candidates. The fact is someone like Russ Feingold had to compete against millions of Dark money dollars.

7: Gerrymandering, especially after the 2010 state elections.

8: Citizen's United

9: The economic and social conditions fueling this have been there for decades. Noam Chomsky warned a decade ago the only thing missing was what people perceived as an honest demagogue, and that is the role Trump played to perfection..the anti-hero demagogue. The propaganda system which kept the real concerns and experiences of ordinary people at bay added to this, as well as the deliberate actions by the republicans to not let anything be done for working people.

10: Liberal elites refusal to acknowledge or deal with the majority of people's life experiences. Rather than any sort of income and jobs program, we got income qualified school lunches, the Violence Against Women Act and affordable housing programs that did not take into account anything outside of income as a possible cause. We got Beyonce' dancing in support, but nothing that dealt with the rural drug problem.  Thus working people watched as assistance based programs were fed into dysfunctional areas without dealing with addiction or behavior. When someone is working two jobs, cannot afford health care and then they watch as their dysfunctional neighbor receives all sorts of assistance, the resentment builds, real or not. There are entire regions that now look like industrial brownfields with closed buildings.

11: I am not as magnanimous to some of my fellow white working people as some commenters are. If I spent my time fact checking every coffee conversation for the utterly deluded, uninformed and racist beliefs espoused, I would end up working all day with a white board and power points. None of it would serve any purpose as most people's beliefs are fixed and they react only emotionally. The level of discerning literacy has dropped proportional to the amount of television watched. This is especially true with white's over 50 and ask any retail or public service person about dealing with an older baby boomer and their expectations. There are also still enough well off white people detached from any of these problems and simply support putting the boots to the lower classes necks to keep their economic status.


12: Nothing is still being done structurally. We still have a military and intelligence budget eating over half our resources, over 800 foreign military installations and troops in over 100 countries. We are still making enemies by our actions in other places and the blowback is the Muslim mass shootings and the crazed fear mongering of the right. That was Hilary's worst trait in my mind..the continued militarism.  The empire is hollow and without pulling those resources back, this will all continue. You cannot be an empire and a democracy. See Chalmers Johnson.

The Reality of Regulation

It’s politics, not protection.

I write this as a former regulator.

Whenever a government official, elected or not, speaks of Polymet, the tone is always “concerned” and assures the public that “they want to get this right.” They will then, as is true in almost any public political statement, deflect responsibility and disperse credit while erasing history. Evidence based politics has never existed when it comes to mining. The same is true with the realities of regulation.

We are much better off than before the now existing laws, whether state or federal. The Environmental review process does place limits and requirements on such projects, and pollution regulation does save us, our children and the natural world from much harm. But, laws must actually be enforced for protection to work. That is where the failure almost always lies.

There are many good regulators and scientists who work in Government. They attempt to do their jobs with great care and concern despite all the forces against them. The cynical, ladder climbing opportunists, political appointees and corporate servants exist everywhere, and that’s where the problem starts. The old Roman axiom “Cui Bono?” which asks “Who benefits?” is still true. Human greed has not changed at all, and in these days of revolving door lobbyists and essentially legalized bribery, it might be worse. Given two kids in school and loans to pay off, self-censorship is as common as direct orders to shut up, and not mentioning the potential problems or over-permit discharges is more common than the public knows.

Mining in Minnesota is big business, and unfortunately, it is the also the state’s business. There are statutes obligating state government to develop and support mining. There is an entire division (Lands and Minerals) of the Department of Natural Resources devoted to “developing” and “diversifying” the state’s resources, which does everything from having a mineral core library to supposedly ensuring reclamation or compliance with state rules. Thus, the politicians and spokesman will say “Everything is just fine”, as we have “thorough regulation and review processes.”  Actually, the corporate spokesmen and lobbyists complain of regulation as burdensome and limiting of their fine industry, working behind the scenes with Range politicians to hand over vast chunks of public resources with no oversight for profit. Some elements of the DFL protest and fight back, but Range politicos work with Republicans to get their way. Government is not the public’s friend when it comes to mining, but instead it acts at the political level like a reluctant watchdog, only the shock collar is held by mining supporters. Any bark earns a shock and the dog learns quickly what the master does not like.

In order to understand this, one simply has to look at what exists now to understand the reality of regulation.  The entire northern part of the St. Louis River Watershed is physically altered. Not a tiny bit, but the entire area. Most in the public don’t understand the meaning of this, and they shouldn’t have to. What is Minnesota’s largest tributary to Lake Superior and itself the potentially richest producer of fish in Northeast Minnesota, in its headwaters, is a mangled mess. This means more erosion and more pollution, not just for now, but for centuries. Your children, grandchildren and their grandchildren will deal with the consequences of this. There has not been monitoring for groundwater impacts, which is true for all of Minnesota. Cities and citizens on the Range have had to move or deepen their wells because of mine pit pumping, with the companies never compensating them. We have given them free water and allowed them to pollute it. Wetlands lost have either never been replaced, never met standards or are allowed to be placed in Aitkin County out of the watershed. The politician’s response, including Gov. Dayton, has been to try and make it easier or allow them to move replacement into the Red River valley or to allow already existing wetlands to be used as replacement.  It has long been known by employees and locals that at dusk, certain Taconite plants activate parts of the plant knowing that regulatory authorities are not monitoring at that moment and blow more dust and pollution out their stacks. The outflow at the former LTV Dunka pit has been flowing off permit for over ten years now. Despite their assurances and years of experiments at mostly public expense, they never did solve the pollution problem there.  At Minntac’s Tailngs basin, the sulfates and extra flow had killed Wild Rice on the Sand River, and the state and federal governments had to force them to change their practices.  The reality is this: without the Federal Government regulations, the citizens of Minnesota would be at the utter mercy of mining companies. The state government is almost wholly owned by the mining companies, and this includes a large piece of the DFL. It cannot be trusted.

Despite what is said, this is not a science based decision. It is a political decision based on profits. Once built, the necessity of keeping it going despite the cost to us, our children, grandchildren and ever on, will override any harm. Just as now, the words ‘Save our Jobs” will be repeated, as the desperate people trapped there will search for a way to keep their lives. They will be used like pictures of starving orphans. The words “profits” and “pollution” will never be spoken.  

The latest proposal, which says that water treatment will be needed a minimum of 500 years, if not perpetually, says enough. There was no Jamestown, Saint Augustine or Quebec City 500 years ago. Cortez had not invaded Mexico. The Iroquois were just beginning to dominate the Northeast and the Mississippian mound culture still had large cities throughout what is now the central and southern U.S. The Cheyenne and Dakota were still in Northeast Minnesota. There was no British empire. The very idea that anyone can argue for this proposal as a solution is an absurdist joke and should be laughed out of the room. It is as if the Holy Roman Empire made a proposal for regulating a river diversion on the Rhine until the year 2000.  If you wish to argue for the financial assurance, I have some Swedish Kroner from the Empire of Gustavus Adolphus, along with some Weimar Republic Deutschmarks I would like to cash in. It is imaginary money worth nothing, especially without any water.

This decision is about people. It is about our descendants and what we will leave them. I empathize with people needing incomes, much more so than any cynical mining official or politician. Our society has plenty of resources to help them, it is just currently being sucked up by fraudulent military contractors. If I could, I would give them income and jobs they might actually value. I can’t. But we cannot solve their desperation by handing over our world to mining companies, who will wreck where we live, leave the mess and take their money and run. They will abandon the people there just like the piles of overburden, as they always have, as they have done before and are doing now. None of that will change. I cannot do that to my children, my grandchildren, their grandchildren and the countless others who will have to live with it. I cannot do that just so I can afford a flatscreen tv. It means nothing. This is our world. There is no escape. Here is where we live. 

Petionville

I am currently working in an area of Northern Wisconsin seemingly isolated from much of the world. Scandinavian last names still rule there, and much of the area is filled with lakes and the lake homes that now come with them. The population seems very old and white and in some ways well off. While the towns seem to be withering in some ways, in others they survive, and the remnants of old farms dominate the landscape. These are our Petionville's, the places where the illusion of a comfortable world for privileged whites still exists. Not by law, perhaps, but by wealth. I see why they vote in the disconnected way they do, for they are disconnected from the reality of the country and most people's lives. The older whites, living off the largesse of the old Republic, cast themselves as deserving in a frightening world. They are our fascists, ready to blow up the world for the right to shop at walmart and drink coffee without the bother of all those poor people. Often, as retired rentiers, they provide nothing but empty opinions and traffic problems.

Colony and Collaboration II

In public discussion regarding the Iron Range, two legacies are commonly omitted. One is the environmental, or the impacts to nature. The other, which cannot be separated from that, is the social.

One myth repeated by many officials is that there are no "significant" environmental problems from mining. They will claim  the water resources of the area remain relatively clean, and other impacts are minimal.

While in comparison to other areas of the state, the north and northeast remain relatively unimpaired but is largely a case of small populations and little agriculture.  The St. Louis River, however, is impacted, with much of its northern portion physically altered by mining. The lag time for these impacts affecting the mainstem of the river will be in centuries. The river is impacted, whether by increased mercury, erosion or extirpated species such as Wild Rice. Sub-watersheds such as the East Swan River are completely destabilized by mining and  minor urbanization. Reservoirs have been created. Parts of  small watersheds no longer contribute to the St. Louis River at all. When now active pits are abandoned and fill, their water will exit at different places, much like the Canisteo pit near Bovey. Wild Rice in the Sandy River was eliminated by Minntac's outflow from its tailings pond. Numerous smaller streams have been channeled.  Groundwater has been impacted, with cities boring new wells as aquifers drain out the side of pits during dewatering. The pit lakes, despite the fantasy designs depicting pleasant lakes surrounded by suburban style cabins, will actually be much more like the former pit lakes now. A small zone with adequate habitat for fish, but the depths rich in toxic hydrogen sulfide, far too polluted for anything to survive, except for some very exotic species hardly familiar except to biologists.  The entire landscape has been altered over a large area, and many of the impacts may not be known for centuries.  Much of it is nothing more than a very large and abandoned industrial brownfield.

Socially, the area suffers also. The cities are in decline and have been for three decades now. They are aging, and drug use is common. It is simply no longer  a case of leaving for economic reasons, but leaving also for social reasons. Life in a world of closed down bars and shuttered store fronts is not appealing. The surrounding countryside does fare slightly better, as for many this is where they actually want to live in the region. Why would you live in a ghost town of rentals and overly perceived crime when your goal is to have a forty acre country home ten miles out of town? This is no longer the world of seventy years ago where living in a city made a difference in your access to certain things, except maybe for broadband, the new electricity of infrastructure.  This is not New York.

This is not uncommon. Most mining regions end like this, whether the old Gogebic Range of the Upper Peninsula, Anaconda, Butte and Libby, Montana or the old Cuyuna Range of north central Minnesota. Everywhere mines existed, there are environmental legacies our descendants will curse us for, as we have left them nothing more than pollution and abandoned places. Some are worse than others.  Our pyramids are shrinking, aging towns, old trailer courts, brownfields and billions of wasted resources spent cleaning up the mess.

The question is, why should or will the Range be any different?

The Range communities, because of State investment and subsidy, simply lasted longer then those other places. This perhaps creates a misconception that they  will avoid the same fate. But truthfully, why should Hoyt Lakes or Babbitt, both built specifically for mining projects, not end like Pine Point, Northwest Territories? 

To be continued...

Of Colony and Collaboration.

When thinking about Northeastern Minnesota and the Iron Range in particular, writers and reporters focus on the last three decades of economic decline. Most often,  the proposed solutions for today's problems follow, the range of debate limited between the  pro-mining and diversification arguments. However, today's debate often avoids historical context. Historian Jeff Manuel's recent study,Taconite Dreams: The Struggle to Sustain Mining on Minnesota's Iron Range, 1915-2000, is invaluable to understanding today's Iron Range.

Another possible interpretation of Northeastern Minnesota and of the Iron Range is that of a resource colony, a view once common to workers but long forgotten . In this view, one sees not only today's workers, but local and state political officials and their government institutions as colonial collaborators, often personally benefiting from the resource exploitation. Now, they are often the principal project drivers in a (usually) claimed  attempt to save the region from economic depression. 

This once held view disappeared in the taconite plant building boom, where for nearly two decades the economic troubles were largely forgotten as money fell from the sky. While Duluth, especially Western Duluth, faced an exodus as plants closed, the Range grew for the entire decade. It was that era's Western North Dakota. 

What is forgotten, however, is that while workers and local elites benefited,  the ownership still existed elsewhere.  The profits were  shipped out with the ore. 

The State had actually done much of the work developing the method to use taconite, and then altered the tax system, increasing the profits in exchange for building the plants and exploiting the resource. Under the federal tax system at the time, the incentive was to build physical capital as a tax advantage. There was a limit to how much cash could be extracted in any given year.  The plants were thus built and run in a cost-plus structure, not fully subject to market conditions until the early 1980s. 

The histories of this time are of workers with little to do and inherent corruption. Workers often slept, and both theft and destruction of equipment was common.  Businessman and contractors exploited the system, often subject to the whims of purchasing agents and plant managers. But, since the money was flowing freely, there were few complaints other than the occasional strike. The area struggled with growth, not decline.

This changed quickly in the early 1980's, and the Range diaspora continues to this day.

We are a colony. 

It is easy to see the early timber and mining industries as nothing more than financial rapists exploiting both people and nature. An entire ecosystem was destroyed, requiring decades of public intervention and natural re-stocking simply to get inferior second growth forests. Early mining is also easily viewed as exploitative, between mine worker deaths, large scale destruction and blacklisted workers. It is also easy to see the clear assistance of the government, between police assistance during strikes or legal maneuvers such as splitting off mineral from surface property rights, now a source of much absurdest humor. They, and the company men, were collaborators. 

When local, state or federal governments collaborate with the industry, it is now called "economic development." Despite this renaming, at no time is any amount of profit other than taxes and wages exchanged for this. And, at the same time, the industry  exploits the other natural resources, especially water, without compensating either society or the natural world. The state funds basic research, and the IRRRB returns collected taxes if the plants "upgrade", better called a promise to continue the industry. More could be added. In short, they collaborate.

There is no alternative seen but collaboration with far off capital, no matter how they treat the colony. And we are left begging.  

The collaborators are now more extreme than ever. They  use government power and financing to assist multi-national corporations, such as Glencore-Xstrata, naming it "economic development" or a "jobs" program rather than assistance to a private corporation with a record of human rights violations and environmental destruction. Other assistance has been doled out, whether Essar, Mesabi Nugget or Magnetation. Despite this, the people sit begging and waiting again. 

The collaborators have created and refined the system, from IRRRB to state government, so they can extract their own wealth from it. Whether as lobbyists or employees of various agencies, consortia and a myriad of other means, they have learned to skim the cream of the remaining taconite revenue directly, or by funneling it in to favored schemes. The communities and people have not benefited, and both show it. The storefronts are closed, and the diaspora continues, and the officials promise. Yet ultimately, the profits and power go elsewhere, and the collaborators continue. Only occasionally do the the Sepoy's rebel. 

To be continued...

My imaginary friend by David Brooks

His wistfulness for Obama shows David Brook's detachment from reality.He fails to inform us that the Lewinsky "scandal" was largely a fabrication of obsessed right wingers. Or that the same people, his own party, are even more obsessed with the imaginary evils of Obama. Or that Hilary is currently defending herself from another imaginary scandal, Benghazi, and that it again is his party wasting precious resources on it. He just happens to like Obama personally.

Why....

Are young women supporting Bernie more than Hillary?
Because they have debt, the jobs don't pay and they want a future. They don't like hungry children, environmental degradation and millions of people put in prison due to poverty. They're intelligent enough to see through the corporate scam that rules our lives. That overrides listening to the concerns of Vassar graduates with $300,000 lobbying incomes having to roll their eyes when a man makes a stupid sexist statement. And for the first time in a long time, they see it's about class, something the Clinton's don't have a clue about, having spent their lives pandering to the rich in order to make a living off the public. Reality is simply overwhelming the newspeak.

Iron Range Delegation and Clown College; Official Court Jesters for Mining companies

The Iron Range delegation has introduced bills limiting Minnesoa Pollution Control Agency authority on Wild Rice WATERS. Rep. Jason Metsa is introducing a bill, HF 853 he claims orders the MPCA to “designate Wild Rice waters across the state” to allow “ industry and local governments to plan their treatment facilities“. Along with Carly Melin, Tom Anzelc and the Republican Representative of the Aitkin area which contains mining leases. Senators Bakk and Tommasoni have introduced Senate bill SF868.

Both bills actually prevent the MPCA from “applying the standard for wild rice waters” or list wild rice waters for "impairment by sulfates under the Federal Clean Water Act. The public complaint is the MPCA sulfate standard has been “unevenly enforced”. In reality, they are preventing the agency from regulating at all and specifically from enforcement on Minntac.  

For over a decade, Minntac has been forced by Federal regulators to treat its tailings pond leakage into the Sand River at the east side of the tailings basin, an area formerly known before as 'Twin Lakes”. Little Sandy Lake was known in the past for up to 89 acres of wild rice (Location here: 47.616658, -92.609201). MPCA staff recommended that the Sulfate standard be applied to Little Sandy Lake in a draft statement of July 25, 2013.

So, our legislators are now publicly paid lobbyists for the mining industry and specifically United States Steel and Minntac. They are collaborating with a large Mining corporation in polluting our water and destroying wild rice, a resource used  by natives and white's and is a violation of treaty rights.  

For these officials to claim the DFL mantle while acting as frontmen for polluters and the extraction industry is as duplicitous as can be. This is not the first time they have collaborated with Republicans to reduce protections or sold out the public.  They do have a party membership: "The me, mine and my corporate sponsors party".

MPCA Draft recommendation link: http://bit.ly/1CFiYvV

Minntac tailings basin original EIS: http://bit.ly/1MuzMxL

Minntac Final Wild Rice EIS: http://bit.ly/1ySKwvB

Vox Populi....Vox illiberaliter...Tom Bakk, defender of the public purse.

The conflict between Governor Dayton and Senator Tom Bakk supposedly started with commissioner's salaries. The Governor has proposed an increase in commissioner's salaries. Governor Dayton stated he no longer trusts Bakk as this was something previously agreed upon. Bakk has posed as a populist budget watcher protecting the public purse from the supposed profligate Governor. One item, Bakk as defender of the public purse, is provably false. The other, the conflict starting over this, most likely isn't, considering what the Governor has dealt with for years.

The local party organ newspaper, the Mesabi Daily News, better named the “ Pravda of the Iron Range” both for its commitment to truth and the local elite's shared opinion, ran an editorial supporting Bakk and a “vote your opinion” public poll designed to target ranting rangers against the Governor and supporting Bakk. Fortunately,  for the public, and unfortunately for the family members, it's readership shrinks with every obituary announcement.

Bakk is no populist. Calling him DFL is an even greater stretch, akin to calling the Clintonite Democrats “progressive”. His protection of the public purse has included 90 million dollars for the Senate office building ( One wonders if there will be Soviet realist style statues, with naked muscular senators holding picks and shovels to the sky), funding the water supply for the poverty stricken owners of Lutsen Mountains, and ensuring individuals and businesses getting funds from the IRRRB do so in secret lest the public know some get millions for doing nothing, While various social stances and other policies deserve approval, the fact is the district votes strongly for these and politician is likely to support them out of necessity.

Most likely, this argument has been festering for a long time, as Bakk and other Range politicos have extracted personal programs and funding for decades. One example is their collaboration with Republicans over the sell off of state trust lands in the Government shutdown compromise of 2011, designed to hand over public resources to extraction industries.

Perhaps the Governor's tolerance of the lies finally ended. His, and the public's, should have ended long ago.

The Great Tommasoni and the Iron Range Magic show

Sen. David Tommasoni’s new position as lobbyist, although the organization represents public entities, is simply symptomatic of a corrupt system, especially so on the Iron Range.
For decades, politicians here have been the co-opted servants of the mining industry, providing subsidies, acting as frontmen and either arguing for or providing reduced environmental regulation. Despite this and the repeated promises of prosperity, the Iron Range has the look of a post-Soviet abandoned waste dump. Those lucky, corrupt or subservient enough can still make a decent living but the despair remains, the diaspora continues, and the empty generations are truly here now. Despite the feel-good proclamations of the Chambers of Commerce, sounding like a mix of huckster Anthony Robbins, Up with People and Snake Oil salesmen, the children are few and the majority are poor.
Senator Tommasoni’s position is merely a public acknowledgment of what has been true but very rarely stated for a very long time. The same names, the good ol’ boy system, now mostly early wave baby boomers, have been recycled through different positions for over a generation. A few outsiders have been let in, but the system of interlocking boards, public consortiums and appointed positions have been a way to distribute power, public funds and favors for decades.
While it existed before, the taconite tax increased the system of control and patronage servile to mining regardless of cost. For the first decade and a half, the money flowed free and so did the theft. No one complained as there was plenty to go around. Since the eighties, however, the piece of meat hanging from the chain has elevated and become smaller. The dogs leaping for it are merely fewer and more vicious now. So is the social context, now resembling a farce out of the Brezhnev era Soviet Union, when everyone knew the lie but could not say it out loud and any dissident was deemed mentally ill. The code words are different here, but “environmentalist” or “doesn’t support mining enough” have the same meaning. The barren streets, empty houses and abandoned shops are just all too real, unfortunately.
Politician as lobbyist is nothing new, but the Range example is best described by the ten dollar word “avaricious”. Greed does not fully describe the system as it is so openly practiced here. Bribery is not needed, as the rewards are voted on in public meetings.
This system has long since passed padding pockets. It has, for a very long time, been out and out theft of public resources and funds. It is the Range’s great open secret, and it has as much to do with the empty houses and schools as did relying on a shrinking industry prone to leaving toxic waste, industrial brown-fields and giant holes.
The Range is not alone in this, of course— witness stadiums for profitable NFL teams and subsidies for such important public structures as privately owned malls. More money has been wasted on useless projects benefiting a few or employing the privileged than would have been by handing the money out by random lottery. The hucksterism has reached absurdity, as local officials now openly campaign for a private industry that has polluted, sucked pension funds dry, abandoned sites and communities with no reclamation and declared bankruptcy in every single case. Now, we find they are investing or truly subsidizing its startup and thus tying the public, a large number of whom do not want it, to the enterprise without any public input or knowledge. After years of subsidies and giveaways, it would be better if they simply wore the corporate logos as uniforms.
While this is a travesty, it is not anything new. The state developed and subsidized the industry and still does. Unfortunately, the public has had to pick up the costs, whether in public resources such as water, the emptied pensions absorbed by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, or the countless social costs from the mangled, half empty communities. None of this is ever mentioned, however; it is part of the great “disappeared” from official memory.

The Non-lessons never spoken

Ignoring the usual morons they go to to explain things, there are some lessons to take away from last night, but not those they will repeat like demented parrots.
Here are the lessons:
1: An organized strategy to maximize votes for the plutocracy and minimize votes for ordinary people
2: Change the laws through legislation and court cases to minimize votes of ordinary people. Bring cases so the right wing majority you created on the court gut the voting rights act to ensure voter suppression is legal. Suppress their votes by such things as id cards and inadequate infrastructure.
3: An organized campaign (2010) to gerrymander congressional districts to over-represent older, whiter, wealthier conservative voters.
4: Spend billions of dollars in organization and advertising. Propaganda and infrastructure.
5: An organized propaganda campaign using the proven techniques to excite the fears of the racists, the stupid and co-opted into voting against their own interest.
6: Co-opt the leadership of the other party, making sure populist programs aren't allowed.
7: Create a sense of despair or hopelessness so voter participation is minimal.
8: Dupe religious voters into voting against their own economic interest by  propaganda;use homophobia, racism, abortion and genuine delusion of irrational people as methods.
9: Use the other typical forms of prejudice available. Convince white working class voters the reason for their difficulties is not the rigged corporate system, but poor and colored people who receive a pittance.
10: Use whatever events are possible to inculcate fear among the populace.
11: Pray the stupid white working class people never wake up. Ensure they are indoctrinated from day one with a belief system completely detached from reality.

Those are the lessons.
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Buying Democracy; Stewart Mills

Apparently Mr. Mills would rather represent Hedge funds, a military nutball and Koch Industries, rather than the 8th District


This must have been a real party, what with John Boehner sucking down whiskey and smokes: http://politicalpartytime.org/party/37535/ (Notice Stan Hubbard of KSTP)

Some other buyers:

All records listed here: http://realtime.influenceexplorer.com/filings/959224/SA/

SINGER, PAUL NEW YORK, NY 100246048 $5,200 2014-08-11 ELLIOT CAPITAL ADVISORS KOCH INDUSTRIES INC PAC WASHINGTON, DC 200052099 $5,000 2014-09-23 JOHN BOLTON PAC TAMPA, FL 336062693 $5,000 2014-09-29 EXXON MOBIL CORP PAC IRVING, TX 750394202 $5,000 2014-07-30 And from Minnesota, the Davis Family of Cambria, Davisco Foods,  purchasing their personal representative to Congress: DAVIS, MARTIN LE SEUER, MN 56058 $5,200 2014-09-22 CAMBRIA PRESIDENT (Also Davisco Foods)

It's not about the money, until it is about the money and profits.

The NRA, as would be expected, endorsed Stewart Mills ( they very rarely endorse Democrats). But, most likely, it isn't purely politics. Most likely, it is also about profits. The NRA, despite its claim as a "grass roots group of gun-owners" is a largely a political front for the industry itself.

So, why the endorsement, despite Rep. Rick Nolan being a minority member who hunts?

Money. Profits.

Remember, Mill's family business sells firearms and accessories. Mills, with his family's profits derived from the sales, would be both a servant for the industry and profiting from it. Or, one could say, both puppet and part-time puppeteer, depending on the vote.

 He could  wear contributors patches like a Nascar Driver with sponsor's patches festooned across his body, and as he stands on the podium, acknowledge them... "I would like to thank the Koch Brothers, the Gun Industry, Hubbard Broadcasting and all my family members for their contributions."


A true millionaire man of the people, I am sure he would represent them well.

Who is buying what?

Stewart Mills Donations: http://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/617/14940751617/14940751617.pdf
"To discover who rules, follow the gold."
http://books.google.com/books/about/Golden_Rule.html?id=CU8oyIlNyQcC

And why...?

Why do two candidates, neither of whom's district is remotely close to the Range, and who likely couldn't tell you where it begins or ends, think it's important to have a stand on mining? Frank Jewell's opponent, in a County Commisoner District that is mostly the central hillside of Duluth, listed this as one of his important issues. In another race for Minnesota House District 7A, the Republican candidate, whose politics are the usual right-wing, paranoia filled views, also lists mining as an important issue, this in a district consisting of East Duluth and its surrounding area.

Why?

While these stands align with Republican and right wing tendencies, this doesn't truly satisfy as an explanation, especially for such local races? It is doubtful hordes of citizens in either district are storming the ramparts for a project nearly 100 miles away with an impact destined more for downstream pollution than of any economic benefit. So why?

Who is funding them, and what do they want in return?

Who is backing them?