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CLOSING RANGE DAVE SKINNER
GUEST COLUMN PAT WILLIAMS
WILDERNESS COLLABORATIONS: IBETTER LATE THAN NEVER
HAVE READ THE BEACON’S STORY any local investment; the loss of critical (Oct. 19: “Family Trees”) about the local labor unions; and no new protec- possible collaborations concerning tion of the nearby potential wilderness
TEACH THE ICHILDREN WELL
’VE BEEN IN A FUNK WAITING FOR Election Day to get here so I’d know just how bad it’s going to be, right?
Well, my funk got even better when a series of headlines caught my eye – in general, as put by one website: “Millen- ials Pretty Cool with Socialism.”
Oh, of course! Raised by draft-card burning, long-haired Boomers, swad- dled in Red diapers? Whodathunkit? Never mind that even well-raised, patri- otic millenials have been hit pretty hard by the Great Recession. No matter your upbringing, if you can’t nd a job of any kind at any pay, free stu has a certain appeal, eh? Feel the Bern!
These articles started popping up after the release of a survey from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foun- dation, their “Annual report on US atti- tudes toward Socialism.” This is the rst annual survey of its kind and an interest- ing read overall, but the media take-away was that the youngest (age 16-20) millen- ials are more willing to vote for a socialist (45 percent) or communist (21 percent) than other “generations.”
Does that matter? Yes. The millenial cohort is now 15 to 35 years old, num- bering 70 million according to the Wall Street Journal – these voters and their ideology will be around for a long time.
The survey found 42 percent of mil- lennials were “unfamiliar” with Mao Zedong, aka Mao Tse-Tung aka Chair- man Mao. Seriously? Millions of Amer- icans have no idea who wrote the Lit- tle Red Book and, among other things orchestrated the disastrous, murder- ous mid-1960s Cultural Revolution – an intellectual cleansing that actually set back China decades at best? No clue of the dictator responsible for killing 65 million?
Even more mind-blowing, of those “familiar” with the Chairman, 18 percent rated him favorably. Still? Are there that many morons in America?
There’s more – 40 percent didn’t know who Che Guevara was. Of the 60 percent who did, 37 percent rated him favorably. You know, the guy on the T-shirt, who just so happened to run Castro’s secret police? Bored with extrajudicial execu- tions, Che later ran o to try to start a revolution in Bolivia. Too bad for him it
didn’t work out.
But it’s not just the “millennials.”
Overall, across all age groups, survey respondents actually believe Adolf Hitler killed more innocents than Joseph Sta- lin. Thirty-two percent got that wrong. And there’s more – fully 26 percent of respondents (millennials, 32 percent) believe George W. Bush killed more inno- cents than Uncle Joe.
The truth? Adolf, 6 million, just count- ing Jews. Joe, 20 to 40 million plus. Dubya? A million, but only, only, only if you believe the looniest Code Pinkers.
The survey nding that hit hardest was that 64 percent agreed with “From each according to his abilities, to each accord- ing to his needs.” Who said that, kids? Go to my column on the Beacon website and put your answer with your name in the comments section, if you dare.
Pair that with 68 percent who agreed “A society that puts equality before free- dom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” Hmmm, who do you think said that? And no cheating with Google.
Personally, I’d love to know the per- centage of geniuses who agreed with BOTH those statements – at least 14 per- cent willing to agree with something because it sounds cool.
Shameful.
It is said that those who ignore, or are ignorant of, history are doomed to repeat it. The hardest history there is to ignore is that which you experience, and the mil- lennials are too young for that. The task then becomes to teach the children well, but that’s not happening.
How else could it be possible for 91 percent of the Depression generation to feel Communism is “still a problem in the world today,” even 80 percent of beatnik Boomers, but only 55 percent of millennials?
These are young Americans, fresh out of our “educational system,” ignorant about something that really matters in the real world: The more control any gov- ernment has over the lives of its citizens, the more totalitarian the society. The more totalitarian, the more likely there will be slaughter.
timber harvest and wilderness in the Libby area and I suppose “better late than never” is an appropriate kick start to the same collaborative e orts that were both tried and destroyed in Libby during the years I served as Montana’s U.S. congressman.
Thirty years ago a group of Montan- ans on both sides of the timber/wilder- ness issue in Libby designed a compro- mise agreement and presented it to the Montana congressional delegation for consideration. Both Sen. Max Baucus and I introduced the K/l Accords as leg- islation. We knew it was most unlikely to pass as was but we introduced it to demonstrate our support for the only locally produced collaborative proposal for those forests at the time.
What happened? The timber industry and their paid spokesman, Bruce Vin- cent, fully and completely opposed not only the Accords but also any collabo- ration to assure both harvest and wil- derness. Libby would have none of any such agreement whatsoever. The Libby Log Hauls were pointedly directed at me with signs, slurs, and this banner which is still my favorite from those days: “No More Welfare, Wolves, Wilderness, or Williams.” Ya just gotta have a sense of humor to get through the fact that some of the folks in Libby even voted at the polls against collaboration; although unexpectedly voted to support more wilderness at that same election. But in the end, any attempt to collaborate or even accept congressional legislation was opposed in Libby. The eventual result? Look around: no industry left; 30 years of too much joblessness; forest that could have provided appropriate lumber left uncut; a shrinking popula- tion; 30 years of lost income for workers and reduced pro t for business; little if
areas. The result of the industry’s local voices, and Vincent wasn’t the only one, to refuse to accept compromise and, yes, the unwillingness of a minority of envi- ronmentalists to accept the necessity of collaborative give and take, have created this di cult economic legacy in the ne town of Libby.
As Montana’s then congressman, I tried every approach I could to help, and I continued doing that throughout my time in Congress ... nine terms, eighteen years. My e orts at encouraging com- promise consistently received the sup- port of conservationists but what was the response I received from the naysay- ers? Well, let’s see: I was hung in e gy by these groups that had been created to kill compromise. I was politically ostra- cized by the same timber industry that had come to my o ce in Washington, D.C., to ask if I would please nd a way to get Montanans to sit down together and agree on a timber/wilderness deal. I was to do just that in place after place in the state and, for the most part, Mon- tanans agreed. In some of those places our delegation found su cient harmony to make a local agreement and then pass legislation to ratify those local timber harvest and wilderness agreements. Although I always knew it was predict- able, it is interesting to note that in those places where agreement was reached, the industry did OK for most or all of the ensuing 30 plus years and the des- ignated wilderness areas, rather than cost jobs, actually has both protected and created them.
So, after all these years it is grand to see the old Libby adversaries nally reach the right conclusion that sitting down and working toward agreement is better than continuing to obstruct for another third of a century.
“IT IS SAID THAT THOSE WHO IGNORE, OR ARE IGNORANT OF, HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.”
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
“THIRTY YEARS AGO A GROUP OF MONTANANS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE TIMBER/WILDERNESS ISSUE IN LIBBY DESIGNED A COMPROMISE AGREEMENT AND PRESENTED IT TO THE MONTANA CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION FOR CONSIDERATION.”
Pat Williams was Montana’s U.S. congressman from 1979 to 1997.
NOVEMBER 2, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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