Posted: May 18, 2012 at 7:31 am
Bitterrooter Says “Ecoterrorists” at Work in GOP Primary
A Darby Republican legislative candidate says he believes that a conspiracy is afoot to paint obscene drawings on some of his campaign yard signs. Someone also opened his gate to let his horses out, he alleges.
Naturally, while these scary things were going on, Republican Scott Boulanger did the only thing he could do: tell people he is the victim of “one of those ecoterrorist groups.”
Boulanger is one of six conservative candidates to file in House District 87, according to the Secretary of State website. He will be going up against fellow Republican and incumbent Rep. Pat Connell in the June 5 primary as well as another Republican challenger, Ron Burrows. Two Libertarians Dan Cox and Karen Fischer has also filed for the seat.
Who’s the Democratic candidate you ask? There is not one. TEA Partier Jan Wisniewski has filed as a fake Democrat for that seat. Wisneiwski is also one of seven TEA Party candidates that filed as fake Democrats to take over the Ravalli County Democratic Party board.
The evidence of terrorism, says Boulanger, is that nobody responded to his $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perps. Also, Boulanger says “If it was a local kid, someone would have been talking about it at a bar or school or somewhere.”
Boulanger doesn’t appear to consider the fact that all his opposition for the seat comes from the right, nor the fact that perhaps there is somebody out there who has nothing to do with politics who just doesn’t like him.
The irony of a Republican legislative candidate seeking to scare people with phrases like “ecoterrorist” as a way to denounce an agenda as radical is rich–especially given what happened last legislative session where Republicans sought to secede from the union, abandon U.S. currency, and other wackiness.
Like wipin’ yer ass with a hula hoop: it’s endless.
Ecoterrorism is alive and well in the Bitterroot in the form of livestock producers.
http://www.cskt.org/tr/epa_npsource.htm
So we’re supposed to believe that so called Eco-terrorists from around the world got together and decided that the best target was this one bitterrooter? And the big plan was to draw “obscene” pics on yard signs and open his gate? Come on…
There’s clear evidence of a terrorist threat in the Bitterroot in the absence of a legitimate Democratic candidate. Intimidation by heavily armed paranoid individuals who spout caustic rhetoric has destroyed democracy there.
Running for office is tough enough. Who would subject their family to that kind of risk in such an environment?
The county that went broke. after it voted in all GOP! They gotta blame someone for their Lies and ineptness.
Dear Ravalli County,
You have been had! and will continue to be so until you throw those bums out!
As I pointed out on the Missoulian site, so this Boulanger guy can just blame his open gate and stray horses on some mythical “eco-terrorist” group and yet Perry Backus, the reporter, doesn’t even demand that Mr. Boulanger explain himself? Honestly, to me it’s more upsetting that reporters let these sort of baseless allegations fly without asking for any evidence or facts. However, having witnessed, and been a part of, Perry Backus’ reporting over the years, this is unfortunately pretty normal.
I call this stenography, not journalism. What we have here is a reporter just writing down whatever some wack job says. Anderson Cooper this guy is not.
http://xkcd.com/556/
http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Corporate-Media.jpg
The State of our “news”
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/931606/on_bill_maher_show%2C_dan_rather_slams_corporate_media%3A_%22to_put_it_bluntly%2C_big_business_is_in_bed_with_big_government%22/#paragraph4
According to the Missoula yesterday, the mathematical models for a major fire season have not been this high in 20 years including the major fire seasons of 1999 and 2000.
It will be interesting listening to the chimp screaming from the Tea Baggers and the Far Right Wing Wackos in Ravalli County teling us the Feds arent doing enough to protect their McMansions and 20 acres horse ranches come July and August
it’s gonna be a long summer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-western-wildfires-20120518,0,5904055.story
Rewild the West: ban livestock from the Bitterroot watershed.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-livestock-loss-board-hears-wolf-concerns-in-hamilton/article_d97f8270-a157-11e1-aea7-001a4bcf887a.html
Larry, “livestock” included horses. What do you have against these animals? You should get your slogan “Rewild the West: ban livestock” added as a Dem party plank.
Horses are an invasive species, too, Craig; and when the DCCC becomes monolithic we’ll let you know. You can send us money right now if you wish.
Larry, don’t you represent an invasive species too? Why not lead by example?
You mean like peeing into Old Faithful hoping to provoke the sleeping caldera goddess, Craig?
Larry, instead of peeing into Pele’s mouth and risk the bite of sharp teeth, just jump in and hope she accepts the offering.
Kailash, when it rises. Darmok on the ocean. Kiazi’s children, their faces wet. Shaka, when the walls fell.
Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do:
http://www.ktvq.com/news/second-case-of-flesh-eating-bacteria-reported/
http://mtcowgirl.com/2012/05/18/bitterrooter-says-ecoterrorists-at-work-in-gop-primary/#comment-54467
Explain how humans are an invasive species. They have been in North America for thousands upon thousands of years.
While I am in no way supporting Norma’s take on the issue, I am somewhat surprised that you would ask such a question, Polish. Human beings are the very definition of “an invasive species”. In fact, while the movie “Matrix” used the line to further the plot, the metaphor of us being a “virus” in nature is not too far removed from the facts. We ARE an invasive species… we are simply too arrogant to admit it.
I would call this invasive. And if not invasive, stupid. And if not stupid, destructive.
Indeed, aboriginals were here for ten thousand years and did no lasting damage. SO, it can be done correctly, just not by greedy, uncaring, corporate fascist bastards.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-pebble-mine-epa-20120518,0,7144622.story
False, Moorcat – we are a destructive species, but not an invasive one. I see where you are coming from, but I object to the implication that more recent immigrants are somehow a different species than the tribes they replaced. There is not enough genetic difference to divide us into sub-species, much less different species. Biologically, the genetic change was insignificant compared to the behavioral one.
And even the behavioral one pales in comparison to the mere population explosion that occurred. If our population were in the tens of millions, like the North American population was prior to the arrival of Europeans, we would probably have little effect. Indeed, according to many theorists, we would have less effect that the First Nations had, because the (according to some paleo-historians) were far more adept at shaping the environment to meet their needs than even our society is today.
Let’s start with the definition of an invasive species. It turns out, it’s not so simple. The legal definition in the United States is “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which developed the list of the 100 world’s worst from which our invasive mammals piece originated, defines them as “animals, plants or other organisms introduced by man into places out of their natural range of distribution, where they become established and disperse, generating a negative impact on the local ecosystem and species.” And a 2004 paper in Diversity and Distributions that examines the terminology of invasiveness notes that their is a lack of consensus on this topic and lists five dominant definitions for ‘invasive,’ the most popular of which is “widespread [nonindigenous species] that have adverse effects on the invaded habitat.”
Despite the lack of a single definition, however, we can pull from these definitions some general aspects of an invasive species and apply those to Homo sapiens.
1) An invasive species is widespread: Humans, which can be found on every continent, floating on every ocean and even circling the skies above certainly meet this aspect of invasiveness.
2) An invasive species has to be a non-native: Humans had colonized every continent but Antarctica by about 15,000 years ago. Sure, we’ve done some rearranging of populations since then and had an explosion in population size, but we’re a native species.
3) An invasive species is introduced to a new habitat: Humans move themselves; there is no outside entity facilitating their spread.
4) An invasive species had adverse effects on its new habitat and/or on human health: Humans meet this part of the definition in too many ways to count.
Verdict: We’re not an invasive species, though we’re certainly doing harm to the world around us. If you think about it, all of the harm done by invasive species is by definition our collective faults; some kind of human action led to that species being in a new place where it then causes some harm. And so I’m not at all astonished to find people arguing that we’re the worst invasive species of them all.
Taken from: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/01/are-humans-an-invasive-species/
So Humans might not be Invasive but their domestic animals are, hence the disease domestic animals bring with them killing or harming native animals. One must remember there are more cows in Montana then there are people.
Domestic sheep almost killed off all the Bighorn sheep in our state because of disease as well. Gentically changed corn, in the mid-west is killing species of bees and butterflies necessary for plant life to evolve properly in our state because of a collapse of insect migration dying off.
We can spend all day arguing this point and not get to the actual problem which is. how do we keep both nature and humans domestic animals for food healthy. The Answer is not to kill off certain parts of nature to end the problems, because we set off a whole new collapse of species dependent on wild animals or wild plants. The answer to a healthier Wild animal, as well as healthy cattle is to keep domestics out of migration areas, and birthing areas at certain times of the year, on federal and state land! and to leave wild corridors intact where ever possible. This means more managed herds of domestic livestock on public land.
Again, I would disagree with you, Norma. Humans did not originally populate every continent. In fact, the archeological data suggests that we came from a generally small area and spread from there. We are, in fact, invasive and this has been determined more times than I care to point out at this point. The evidence is self evident. It is only our own arrogance that leads us to overlook the facts. Make no mistake, though, everytime we expand, we force native species out (or outright kill them) and as such, we are the most invasive species on the planet.
The trick is getting people to look past thier own biases and realise just how invasive (and yes, destructive) we are. Biologists disagree on when we overcame the earth’s ability to support us without our technology, but that number ranges from 500,000 to 3 million. Either way, we are long past the time that we overcame the natural processes of the earth to support us. If it were not for our agriculture, water management (which sucks large, BTW) and our other technologies, there would be no way the natural process of the earth could accomadate our numbers.
While people worry about “peak oil”, I find the situation with water to be much more disturbing. For a planet that has 7/10ths of it’s surface covered with water, only a relatively small fraction of that is fresh water. Since almost every complex organism requires fresh water to survive, we should be very concerned about just how much fresh water we have locked up to support our numbers. This is rapidly becoming a very serious issue and we are likely to see many outcomes of this in our lifetime.
Sorry, that was suppose to be 500 million to 3 billion. That is what I get to going from four windows at once.
Cain, the farmer, slew Abel, the hunter-gatherer.
Indeed, we are the invasive riparian hominid changing the face of Earth.
Once, we suckled her, now we rape her. If we are truly destined to return to the stars we must preserve her…unless we self-immolate in the Bitterroot, too.
Its not that I am disagreeing with you guys, but for the sake of argument I had taken the middle road on if man is an invasive species. We have gone from what we need…. To how much we are throwing away.
It is all disturbing, and we do need a quick and disciplined answer to these problems with protecting nature and the enviromet around us. I think you have gone a step further in this conversation then I was with my conversation, but nevertheless you are right.
So I am not who you need to turn on this conversation, rather we need to turn others… given the chance I would start us on the path as soon as possible. It is part of my platform and always has been!
Moorcat – Every species originates in a very specific area, and then spread from there if they find further suitable habitat. The geographical spread of humans is not in itself destructive – while humans had a massive effect on the environment, it was largely sustainable. It was a sudden increase in human population that started the current androgenic extinction wave.
I would posit that Human’s effect on their environment has not been sustainable for over 100 years and likely for much longer than that. Further, the “sudden” increase in population has been going on since the Dark Ages. Human population has been increasing almost exponentially for centuries. It has only been in the last 100 years that human population growth has been a concern and that concern, in large part, is because we have finally started to realise just how destructive and unsustainable our population is.
Let’s be clear… I have no stake in the original argument about what came first, the cattle infecting the wildlife or the wildlife infecting the cattle. At this point, it is a pretty moot point. What is important is how we deal with the reality that exists today.
What I do have a stake in, is whether we can be honest with ourselves about just how much we impact the world we live in. If we are incapable of that honesty, we will never rise to the occation to fix or mitigate the damage we do. I do not claim some kind of special removal from that damage either. I use electricity, I am hooked up to city water and sewer, I enjoy a fairly comfortable modern lifestyle and while I don’t personally drive a car, I would have a difficult time getting around to the places I need/want to go if my wife didn’t drive. I have no illusions about my impact on this planet.
I also recognise that even a small change – instituted by a majority of people can have a huge impact on our world. By replacing all my lightbulbs with longlife/low wattage energy efficent bulbs, I have not only reduced my electric bill, I have reduced my footprint on the energy needs of society. By growing some of my own food, I reduce the need to truck in that food from other places. By buying meat, produce and other goods from local suppliers, I further reduce the need to truck things in from other places. All these things may seem minute (and are in the grand scheme of things) but they serve to massage my conscience if nothing else. Now if millions of people took those same steps, the effect would be significant.
All I am saying is that Humans are invasive and we have become so invasive and destructive that if we don’t change, there won’t be any resources left to utilize or we will engineer our own extinction.
See executive order http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/laws/execorder.shtml
Arguing the semantics because one doesn’t like the connotation seems to represent the arrogance of our species.
Wisent, elk, caribou, snow geese, locusts, humans, etc. all self introduced themselves to North America. The current population of snow geese is especially destructive in the arctic regions. Also, they have brought us bird flu from Asia.
Ring fencing the definition to fit this or that effect sorta misses the point. It’s not a competition.
Humans are an invasive species but with the ability to recognize harm and prevent or remedy it. That’s the only substantive difference from other species.
A species need not be invasive to be destructive. Probably the largest extinction in history was caused by autotrophic bacteria. Species go extinct, and other species are frequently to blame. This is not uncommon or unnatural or unique to humans. But you point out the key difference – we can see the effects we have, and we can desire to prevent them.
Pretty toothless council right now, the budget is a mere 1.25 million dollars. down from when it was originally enacted in 1999. Another thing we can thank Bush for?
I don’t know about anyone else but I have seen a lot of animal and bird migration this year, I think we are really seeing the results of climate change. Wolves are not the cause of every little thing going on out there in the forests.
And heres another example, at least in SW Montana: The humanization and feeding of elk and deer on big cattle ranches. so that they can charge big money during hunting season, for rich out of staters to hunt on their property. Our Guy Jeff Welborn made that far easier. Having the republicans in the state house approve Looser laws for out of staters to get buddy hunting permits from ranchers. OUT of state Enthusiasts who want to spend big bucks to hunt on private property.
So now, the ranchers in our area are complaining about a outbreak of Brucellosis in our area because of all the elk they invite on their properties to make money in the fall. Their cattle operations now under the watchful eye of the state and local government, because elk carry Brucellosis, the original disease man brought with him from Europe with his infected cattle, that in turn infected wildlife in the early days of America. Don’t they wonder why?
Montana Senator Debbie Barrett Went as far in this week’s Dillon Tribune as to blame the wildlife in our wilderness areas, for infecting cattle. because Ranchers keep trucking their cattle to these federal and state lands for summer grazing, were known cases of wildlife have tested positive for Brucellosis! Because big private land spreads in our area go out of their way to sell ranch hunting! Doesn’t Make a bit of sense to me, how anyone can be blamed but the greedy, who were hoping to make money all year round!
Norma, I can’t imagine the reaction you’ll get if your explanation of brucellosis vectors, and your implied solution, ever gets out to voters. Kiss your campaign goodbye.
Bison got it from milk cows brought in in the teens. Then about the time science figured out a test for bangs, YNP let the bison herd be “natural” and it exploded from 400 to 3000 and up. Somewhere in there, the fat herds of elk swapped snot with afterbirths and elk got infected.
And then the wolves started running elk around. Plus the elk are considerably more mobile than bison, plus already pretty well-distributed and like to herd up from time to time.
Glad you admit that it was the RANCHERS that started brucellosis in wildlife! That’s a start. It’s kinda like a twelve step program for morons. The FIRST thing you must do is admit you have a problem. Nature did NOT have a problem until the ranchers brought in their cows! Them damn ranchers! They shoud try to be more like nature, doncha think?
Larry, milk cows are owned by dairymen. Furthermore “bangs” has been around for 1000′s of years and may have been brought here by Wisent from Europe and Asia that crossed over. There’s a reason as to why cattle and bison can breed together.
Runoff from livestock operations in the Clark Fork basin shows no sign of abating.
Even Idaho is concerned about Montana’s love affair with pollution. Are livestock producers and municipalities ready to stand for lawsuits from downstream states?
http://dnrc.mt.gov/wrd/water_mgmt/clarkforkbasin_taskforce/pdfs/groundwater_tech_summary-12-5-06.pdf
After reading this pdf, I agree we are heading right back into what happened in the San Gabriel valley decisions.
More questions need answering. We in Montana are better suited to answer those questions now, then having that right taken from us down the road, because of political BS.
Dave, what you consider as an explanation of history of the disease, and your idea of how the disease is passed, or how certain stupid rich people in ranching who are willing to destroy Montana’s cattle industry for a little fall hunting cash, is a little to be desired.
I come from a family of good cattlemen, and I worry for the little ranchers in this state more then you’ll ever give a damn.
So bring on whatever BS you think you can throw my way. At least people in the industry, know I’m willing to point out whats wrong with the industry as well as whats right.
They know they’ll get someone who cares enough to tell them the truth.
Thought I would post his on my Private blog, Just for us Democrats. http://ilikewoods.blogspot.com/
The Younger Buffet Rule!
Coal dust impact could eclipse fracking: Casper Trib.
I just love the illustration, proving how mature and thoughtful his politics are.
Who let the livestock out, whoot whoot.
Frankenbugs developing in livestock runoff?
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/bacteria-evolving-faster/
FWP is perpetrating some ecoterrorism, too. Urge the Governor to end this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFO7yjhtsG0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Is moving these bison by truck a violation of a recent restraining order?
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/wildlife/article_7cdcaa00-a622-11e1-8ae0-001a4bcf887a.html#.T7-pFWK_HTM.twitter
http://www.kpax.com/news/judge-extends-restraining-order-to-prohibit-bison-movement-across-mt/
I know boulanger and connell, and my assessment of the situation was that connell paid some punk kids to do the deed. boulanger is just too nice of guy to publicly lay out his beliefs regarding connell’s lack of ethics. among connell’s votes that show he has sold his soul for a buck is HB198, Pat made it easier for corporations, yes even canadian corporations to take YOUR land via eminent domain.
Urge Sens. Baucus and Tester to vote against S. 3248:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s3248
A bizarre coalition of senators led by Wyoming’s Mike Uzi has sponsored S. 3248: The Bison Legacy Act which seeks to recognize “North American bison.” The AP’s Matthew Brown wrote “Plains bison” in a Missoulian article.
Thomas does not note whether genetically pure Plains Bison are lumped in with the hybrid mongrels that inhabit feedlots, Custer State Park, and the National Bison Range.
Very suspicious: this thing is on a slippery slope for a future of mixing the species in the wild.
Interesting that two states with genetically pure herds, Montana and Utah are not on Thomas’ sponsor list where it’s also noted that the bill has poor chance of becoming law (21%).
So what is the difference between a real Democrat and a fake Democrat?