This article from the Star Tribune is the latest in the "8th District divide" meme, a narrative thread for years, exacerbated now by the Polymet " debate". I place it in quotes for while the debate is public,  it is often uninformed about law and environmental process. Often, the politics of the process are also uninformed, as many reporters/writers take public political statements at face value, rather than also judging them based as part of a political strategy.

The 8th District has changed and is changing, long gone from the days of the "Range Mafia" group of legislators. While the core remains, the reality is it now probably consists of about four legislators and two state senators, some placed into powerful positions by seniority and strategy. It is not as much a dominant force within the DFL, as the recent Mining platform resolution defeat showed; political insiders would tell you the removal wasn't just "making peace", but  was also because the resolution would be defeated. Demographics are part of this; the Range and Northeastern Minnesota is shrinking and aging by numbers as the empty generation of the 80's and 90's takes hold sans childbirth. And while the political changes can be blamed on numbers, it must also be remembered that social values change as the population changes, and the world, despite the Range's insularity, has changed.

 There are two world views clashing, one of them chained to the colonizer-exploitation economy Northeastern Minnesota was based on, now linked more to corporatization and right wing beliefs, the other, attempting to struggle against the system by fighting for a different social-economic view and the new realities.

The Range DFL dominance derives from decades past, born out of the labor struggles pre-1960. The 1964 Taconite Tax amendment and the IRRRB  helped create and  enlarge the already developing industry, but also gave the local governments the needed share of the proceeds. What is not spoken of is how it also co-opted the local officials, giving them a means of power and a political stake in maintaining mining at all costs, especially after the economic and social catastrophe of the 1980's, still ongoing. It was, and is, an odd and strained coalition. Representatives who support, hold and drive  some of the most progressive positions in the country, at the same time promoting regulation reduction, ignoring pollution, denouncing science showing said pollution and fervently promoting internationally backed projects led by some of the worst polluters on the planet.  The co-option model, as outlined above, is the only explanation, as the communities and local elites power and income derives from mining and other exploitative industries. They, and the communities, wet their beaks in the 60's-70's boom era when money was cheap and now no one wants to give up their cabin. A large part of the  local population, their income tied to the entire process, is understandably just as fundamentalist in their belief, any evidence to the contrary disappeared much like a Khrushchev party speech in the Brezhnev era.

The articles regarding the divide often quote political candidates and leaders as facts, but should also be viewed as public political strategy. A DFL leader making statements such as " My party has left me" is not just stating his disappointment over how party position has changed, but he is also making a point to party leaders: "Support what I want else I support the other party's candidates who will"; this could also be known as the "give me what I want or else I go home" strategy. It is a fear based strategy, based on the ability to deliver votes. The problem is, can the votes actually be delivered, or, 
"Can the Center hold?"

While the new project supporters are fervent, it actually remains a question of how many of them are part of the DFL voting core or coalition.  When the public sites are examined, much of it contains very conservative positions and the names are old, often ranging back to the 1970's BWCA "battles". One is just as prone to see an anti-Obama post or sign as they are  pro-mining. This, perhaps, is where local political officials have failed to account for the difference between tactics and strategy. They have fed an attack dog they thought they had chained and under control, only to find it will simply eat them when hungry. It also says something about them personally; long since co-opted, despite their personal and political  beliefs, they have forgotten that the system is ultimately exploitative of both people and the natural world. Isolated by the ensured employment and relative comfort, they haven't foreseen the demographic and economic changes of the last 30 years. We no longer have the social contract of the post-Roosevelt boomers, instead we now have the Koch Brothers and the WTO. We also have the lunatic followers of the right-wing. There is even a divide between the Steelworker's Union and some project supporters.

As I stated above, the District's demographics have changed, and while some change has come from geography, for example, exurban Chisago county now being part of the district, there is demographic change as well, some from inflow, some from  outflow and some merely part in differences between age groups. The Range, and much of the country, is now a three tier economy, with the elite, the lucky and co-opted who benefit, and the rest much fighting it out for the scraps of low wages with no social support. And no longer can the Northeastern DFL count on a coalition of supporters happily supporting whatever they wish. While the real chances for victory may be slim, it does show a divide, and not a small one. It is as much about a different world view as it is a political fight.

The question might best be, "Have the Range elite simply been too co-opted for too long"? Their power, derived from one industry and a questionable political strategy leads to the question: Is their politics finally failing in the new realities?

Range Quixotic

And for important St. Louis county business, we get this: http://bit.ly/1hZRrfx. As the story says, many local city councils and now the county have passed resolutions against any Polymet review. What bearing this has on the final process is questionable, of course.

But there are other important questions:

1: Why are local government, county and state officials acting as publicly funded lobbyists for  private, multinational backed mining firms?
2: How many of these officials have stock, or potential personal and business benefits. How about their friends and acquaintances?
3: How much other important business  and how many other alternatives  for economic development are ignored?

The Range is not alone in these problems; in fact, they are global in nature, and resource extraction based communities all have similar problems. But, the Range's problems are also historically specific to both mining and logging. The artificial boom of the 60's and 70's was a Potemkin village; built and operated at cost-plus, with feather-bedded workforces and rampant theft, the building and expansion construction booms were due to end. Following Herbert Stein's famous quote: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,". The seniority system gave most of the jobs remaining to first wave baby-boomers, thus an entire generation left starting in the 1980's and we now see the results.

Desperate for the days of easy money, local officials now push for their and their friend's personal profit at the expense of everyone else and the natural environment. Using their publicly funded positions, they now spend our tax dollars and time forcing this and other projects down the public throat, all while feasting at the public trough, whether in pay or subsidies.

Sponsor decals

The Range dfl no longer represents people. They are now a wholly owned subsidiary of mining companies. I suggest they wear NASCAR style jackets, with company name decals festooned everywhere to indicate their sponsoring company. To the rest of the state, They are now a farce, a reactionary force bent on extracting from the public trough and handing over resources.

Mining, the DFL and the primary

Though I am skeptical of anything ever said in campaigns, I support Rick Nolan over the other two candidates. The major reason right now is about mining. Though all, as is typical with anything about the industry and its destructive koolaid,  "support" it, there is a difference for me that goes directly against Jeff Anderson. He always speaks of his "Range" connection, his support of mining and endorses Rep. Cravaack's bill to gut mining regulations. The pronouncements are always the same and always mention jobs. They never mention profits, who is getting them, how long the jobs will be for and what we will have left afterward. To repeat what is already known: No sulfide mine has ever been successfully reclaimed. Ever. All violate standards, no matter how weak. All have required public cleanup costs greater than estimated. According to Mr. Anderson and its other supporters, if we just let it happen all will be well and the streets will be paved with gold. I remind him of the gold we have now; a legacy of environmental problems. drug and alcohol addled, emptying communities and a third world like wealth divide, combined with an uneducated redneck culture that spends its union fought for wealth on alcohol and Harleys. Now, according to the supporters, if we just turn our resources over to such friendly corporate cannibals such as Glencore, all will be well. Anderson represents something I know very well, and that is what I call Rangeritis; it is the inability to think outside of  anything but destroying the place to make living. The miners long ago became co-opted when wages went up, especially during the 1970's sleep on the job boom. Now, most of them speak like  Corporate P.R. hacks, operating more like ventriloquist dummies than thinking human beings. Anderson is of the same strain; somehow, we have to keep the communities going (no matter how far out on the edge they are), and if we have to destroy thousands of acres for forever to do it, then so be it. It shows his limitations as a candidate, especially for a congressional office; he simply does not have the broad vision needed to look beyond the next horizon. He either doesn't know or chooses to ignore what is already well known; in either case it isn't good enough.
http://nolanforcongress.org/


Essentially, here is what's happening; we are being told to give up public resources for foreign investor profit, to corporations with horrifying records, including human rights violations, to sell precious metals on the world market, for an industry which has always left a disaster, so a small local elite can benefit greatly and some more hapless suckers can work for nearly 20 years, not retire and be stuck with bills after purchasing too many 4-wheelers. At the end of this,  the communities' will again be emptying and destitute just as they are now. We will of course be on the hook for the clean up as always.

I would simply say no to all of it. But, at the very least, Nolan has a vision beyond handing the world over to this insanity.

We no longer have the DFL...we have overpaid elected idiots

For decades, voting for the lesser evil has been normal. Northeastern Minnesota’s DFL, however, was and has always appeared the last bastion for ordinary people’s needs. In many ways, that remains true, but in others, it is now so utterly destructive that to vote for them is to destroy the very place we live.

The peculiar history of Northeastern Minnesota and the Range in particular has, after five generations, made destroying the communities and the natural world the norm. While southern Minnesota was first to be destroyed, settlement was dominated by agriculture and by its very essence, was very different than the ecocide of the north. The north was not settled at first; after the conquest, native lands were legally stolen and turned over to land speculators and railroad men. The first exploitative assault was to denude the forests of its most ecologically and financially valuable timber; the forests were not “cleared”, but instead demolished. Hapless American and European peasants were shipped in, railroads built, the finest timber removed, and the land covered with the remaining debris. Genocide and the catastrophic Hinckley and Cloquet fires were the first children of the rape; the second were the mineral prospectors. In the brute exploitation of both human and nature that was 19^th century capitalism, gold wasn’t found, but iron ore was. I will not glorify the destructive history of earlier times, for the history sits all around us in a demolished landscape, tainted water and desperate communities.

This history, however, is constantly refrained and built into monuments honoring destruction; these show how the extreme becomes the normal and the thinking of the exploiter becomes the thinking of the exploited. And this is where I need to break with those I used to support.

Recently, Range Dfler’s joined the state’s Republicans in rewriting the state’s environmental review rules. The complaints justifying the need all spoke of timeliness and jobs, but none dealt with the actual results. They added their own special privilege: Any Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) project is exempt from the environmental review process. This, of course, means the taxpayers are now forced to give the Polymet project money despite its potential destructive effects. In short, the public is now forced to hand over land, cash and profits to private investors, many of them foreign, in hopes that several hundred desperate people might hopefully be employed for 20 years. The refrain is always “jobs” and “community” while two concepts are never mentioned; the mysterious word “profits” and the always ignored fact that any community built completely for exploiting a finite resource is doomed from the very beginning. That the Range DFLer’s don’t recognize this shows they are now as much of the problem as the former land barons and “iron men” now honored in ridiculous murals and statues. Now, as part of the local elite, they assist the destroyers with endless subsidies; the DNR’s mineral research, infrastructure funding, education, and finally, handing over our land, water and the very resources we sit on. The communities and employees, trapped in the hapless modern equivalent of the company town, their incomes bound to the corporations, hand over their very lives and landscapes. That they are comparatively well paid only leads to more co-option; the endless supply of over-size trucks, ATV’s and bound mortgages colors the thinking of everyone. The desperation that is the modern United States surrounds us; we work for corporate investors so we can pay debts to corporate investors so we can buy plastic toys from corporate investors who use slave labor to build them overseas. Mysteriously, this is called the zenith of civilization.

The Range’s problems are complex yet simply defined; the communities, despite any booster’s glorification’s, are graveyards next to wastelands. The people are beholden to their corporate master's, a truth fully evident yet never spoken; it as if saying “the sky is sometimes blue”. No one mentions it so they do not have to acknowledge the drudgery that is modern life for most. We have toys, yes, but we do not have what matters most, and that is community. And now we watch helplessly as the one group who used to define something different be the group willing to hand over the most; our land, our water and more of our community.

In a rational world, albeit imaginary, we might ask of ourselves 'We have this resource, perhaps of wealth, perhaps of trouble, but what do we do with it and how will it benefit us? What do we charge the corporation for exploiting our land? What do we get in return? What will be left? How do we assure our grandchildren will still want to or be able to live here?

This is, of course, not the case.

The mining laws of Minnesota, like most dealing with “Natural Resources”, sets the state's role as promoter of exploitation, or truly, the mother of destruction. We pay for research, we pay for infrastructure, we pay for what little of reclamation occurs and then we finally pay for destroyed communities and dysfunctional lives left over when the profit takers “downsize” or walk away. No matter what, it's a temporary fix and a devil's bargain.

The two communities most affected by the Polymet project have problems deriving from their very origins; they were both built specifically for mining only, standing at road’s end, miles from anything, surrounded by a scavenged landscape or forest. The project’s proponents want to resolve this by destroying more public forest for private profit, supported by countless subsidies, in exchange that a few will get paid for 20 years. Their aim, of course, is to start more projects on the same ore bodies, to destroy more land, to destroy more water, it all at public expense for private profit.

When I think of where I'm from, I think of the earliest labor organizers, some of whom I met and knew. Despite their so called ignorance, they knew one fundamental fact: the owners were exploiters, and nothing more. They were not our friends, and not to be trusted. They would sacrifice anything , including their worker's lives for a few dollars more profit. Fortunately, and unfortunately, the labor fights and unions brought us better conditions and a share of the profits., but they also co-opted us. Now, many are slaves bought and paid for, their lives a collection of mortgages, four wheel drive trucks and other toys. Like Orwell's well trained dog, they roll over without the masters watching. Anyone who questions the constant cycle of destruction and subsidy is labeled treehugger. No one sees the fundamental truth behind what is done; we borrow from the future to keep it all going, ignoring the mess we make in exchange for a big screen tv, burgers at the bar and a boat at the inherited lake property.

To end, there is one question that needs to be answered by those arguing for any extraction project: What will be left when it's done? Until the Range DFL answers that question, they are nothing more than puppets who want to sweep the crumbs off the table to the public's mouths.

Considering the results we see now, with emptying communities, rampant social problems and addiction, aging infrastructure we can't afford and environmental destruction all around us, the experiment's results are obvious; we simple need a better way.

Some Pictures from yesterdays Gilbert Parade and Franken visit...

OINK!

Here is a brief list of some big local subsidies:

http://www.hoytlakestobabbitt.com/

Excelsior Energy "The Gas Plant":http://www.irrrb.org/_site_components/lists/newboard-meetings/October%2027%20Board%20Minutes.doc

http://www.sehinc.com/online/tower/index.htm (The Harbor at Tower)

And our old favorite Giants Ridge: http://www.cagw.org/site/DocServer/2006_Minnesota_Piglet_Book.pdf?docID=1701


The first is a planned road from Hoyt Lakes to Babbitt, essentially a road between two nursing homes. This is, of course, to serve the burgeoning growth of these two outposts. St. Louis County is taking the lead on this while cutting budgets in other areas. It's symbol should actually be a pig on its back...

The second, if you have not been buried under a rock, is a loan to someone with no capital, no collateral, no engineering expertise, and whose only qualification is that he was hockey player at Hibbing and the University who was then funneled into gravy executive jobs via his connections from boosters. 9.5 million. To Lobby. To lobby to force others to give money to you for a non-existent technology known for pollution, coal gasification.

The third is the "Tower at Harbor", in which current public money is being used to pay an Engineering consultant for preliminary studies on re-routing HWY 135 in Tower, then dredging out wetlands and a river, placing jetties into Lake Vermillion, constructing what is essentially a multi-story strip mall with condos at the top surrounding a Harbor with 80 slips. No private money...developer "must be found" ....this will supposedly turn Tower into a virtual economic powerhouse, as teenagers sell espressos, bagels and trinkets to wheezing boomers piloting their pontoons up the taxpayer dug channel. There is, of course, no mention of locally connected business people benefitting at taxpayer expense. SEH's lobbyist is the thankfully retired State Senator Douglas "Porkbarrel" Johnson.

The last is 2006's subsidy to Giant's Ridge, which should tell us just how well such plans work. 20 years of subsidies later, and all they have managed to do is sell off a bunch of public land and make some contractors some cash.

We do not have heath care. Many of our current roads rival old Karelian cart paths. These are their only ideas?

Oink

As the crash goes further, and Obama worship becomes a religious cult, critical thought processes are something forgotten...the Bush administration was crazy, but will there actually be a cure..watch Kevin Phillips here:

More of Norm. I am not even going to try to explain what has been going on, but it comes down to Norm trying to deflect attention away from potential trouble. So go see it here

The Scary Part is how many of these people exist...The frightening nutballs of America; or the loads of ignorant cracker trash we are surrounded by:

Both the Intrade prediction market and 538 have Obama steadily ahead. In State races, the Senate Race and the 6th CD are tight, but the important subject of the night is the consistent movement of Democratic candidates in all races and places where they have not been strong in years.

And finally, another endorsement for Obama...from Colin Powell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efv3Vr8T9MA

A long story of Norm's ties to the dirty ads and calls he complains about, and Michelle Bachman steps further over the crazy line...and geez, other than Hillary coming to the range, it has been seemingly boring up here

Douglas " Pork Barrel" Johnson...former State Senator and an official political whore. He endorsed Coleman yesterday while still claiming democrat status, ( which was always in question, this cat thought of nothing but himself for years)..he does not tell you he is a registered lobbyist for excelsior Energy, the great future polluter. This is another piece of evidence telling us the Dfl'ers in the north need a great cleansing, as whatever values they once had have become the property of greedy self serving swine like this useless bucket of offal...

Here is his registered client sheet:

From Minnesota Campaign Report, Norm Coleman's voting record...It is ugly

The 8th District repubs candidate.

For the 8th District, of course, James Oberstar is the candidate. Two years ago, Rod Grams rose from his political grave to yet again create noise pollution. Hopefully he is buried for good now. This time, no such known name came forth. Instead we have this guy . So one needs to ask, what is he for actually for and what is he against? My first impression, and this not partisan, is he thinks in a standard talk radio repub way. The way out of the oil crisis ( really a crisis of transportation and production) is to drill more in the Arctic, North Dakota and offshore. Like most who believe this, he has no clue about the amount the U.S uses everyday or how it is used. His other solutions include tax breaks for higher mpg vehicles ( oh my) and nuclear power. In short, more of the same bull which assumes we can continue on with what we do.

On social issues, we have the same small religious based thinking on abortion and marriage. Marriage is somehow sacred, rather than the legally defined contract which it is. As usual, he claims to be for individuals, but wants the state to define who a person can marry. He says nothing about divorce, of course.

There is a beep about property rights, and a link to a nutball property rights group. These people believe that you should be able to do what you want regardless of the consequences to the environment and everyone downstream or downwind.

As in the last go round, we have the criticism of Oberstar's address. Do these people even study just how much time congress is in session? Or what being head of a major congressional committee entails? The time it requires, or the complexity of the issues involved? Obviously not. You might need to have a house or apartment rather than charging up hotel bills.

I won't even comment on the criticism for refusing to save a fire hazard riverboat

This is precisely what I mean by a "talk radio view of the world". Like many who do not know the extent of their own ignorance, he assumes the world is simple place, and that all problems are quickly solved. I am sorry, but problems involving complex systems such as energy, transportation and social policy aren't resolved by decree and appeals to the local pastor.

It reminds me of this:

NEXT FRIDAY THE OBAMA BUS COMES TO THE RANGE! The national RV Campaign for Change tour will be here next Friday the 12^th of September. If you’d like to attend any of the following roundtables:

ELY Sportmen and Environmentalists’ Roundable at the Grand Ely Lodge, 9:30-10:30am

VIRGINIA Veteran’s Roundtable with Sen. Dave Tomassoni at the Virginia MN for Change Office, 327 Chestnut St, 12-1pm

HIBBING Sportsmen’s Roundtable at Grandma’s In the Park, Howard St. at Hway 169, 2-3pm

Norm Coleman, friend of Bowlers:

I don't know if this is playing up here yet, ( it might not because most up here would probably see through and they know it), but I was forced to sit through the latest Coleman commercial yesterday. It is three actors playing bowling guys bad mouthing Franken. Minnesota Independent has it all. I like the names of the corporate front organizations: "Minnesotans for Employee Freedom" and " Coalition for a Democratic Workplace". Those names alone tell us wealthy owners are behind them.

This will appear as as strange post, but it is very relevant. It is not about political gamesmanship or the campaigns, but it directly relates. It is about fuel prices and how they have structured our society , and how they affect us now. I do not agree with everything said here or claim to read the future, but the predictions have been coming true, and the data is real. The cheap easy to get liquid hydrocarbons we have based our life on are going or getting more expensive to process and extract, and people within the U.S. in general and locally need to deal with the reality that 40 mile commutes will not be affordable for many people anymore ( Listen planners and local boosters). We have to find a way out for transport and how we live. The first section is a Russian author who compares the Soviet collapse and the similarities he sees in the U.S. now; especially the flat out denial of reality. I will add another link to a speech by Matthew Simmons, an oil investment banker. It is a long speech, but he exposes the reality of the world's oil fields and lack of discoveries since the 1960's. This relates to the complaints of high gas prices and the new proposed solutions. All of them are about keeping the cars and trucks going as they are now, or smaller vehicles. It is ethanol, North Dakota, or Oil Sands. It is never our transport system, or 5000 people commuting 30 miles in a four ton vehicle. Or our food system, producing packaged junk in a box to be shipped 1500 miles. As prices go up, the poor will suffer first, especially as ethanol is used to give the wealthier the fuel to drive around. So here are the links: here and here