The Big Cry Country

Originally Posted at The Festering Swamp on June 27, 2007

Not long after I posted this, Cassandra started her own blog: Missoulapolis – which today is one of the more influential blogs in the Montana blogosphere. Currently, Cassandra (aka Carol Minjares) is running for election to the Montana House of Representatives on the Republican ticket. She faces an uphill battle in a heavily Democratic town, but sometimes the unexpected can happen. Good luck this November, Carol! – Mike LaRoche

As regular posters and lurkers in The Festering Swamp comment section are aware, our very own Cassandra was planning to attend a city council meeting of her (and my former) hometown of Missoula, Montana on Tuesday, June 26, 2007. The meeting concluded late Tuesday night with the council, by way of a tie breaking vote from the city's mayor, approving a resolution to put a measure calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq up for approval by the Missoula electorate this November.

Cassandra writes:

It was hot and I was tired and I didn't get to speak until almost 11. The joint was packed. Missoula tackles the Big Issues! Naturally, we were last thing on the agenda.

There were 27 for the referendum and 17 of us against. I was the only one to bring up will happen in Iraq after we withdraw. I was just another speaker and kept it short. My voice gave way terribly, it was unnerving. Too much singing along with Koko Taylor when I work out.

Most every proponent went on about how it's nice & democratic to vote on everything. One of our guys said great; let's vote on the next annexation or extension of the sewer while we're at it. Council was not amused. My bud Col. Keefe USMC told them to stick to potholes.

The vote split 6-6, mayor breaking the tie to put the thing on the ballot this November. Bleah, I don't care. We held up the side.

Interestingly, the reporter covering the event for The Missoulian – Keila Szpaller – points out:

A movement among cities formed even before the United States went to war [emphasis mine] because many citizens felt Congress was turning a deaf ear to the will of the people, said Karen Dolan, with the Cities for Peace Campaign of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies.

Right, no one knows the "will of the people" like a Washington, D.C.-based political hack spending her time fomenting onanistic "grassroots" movements that have as much influence on the conduct of American foreign policy as Kevin Federline.

I'm certain many Montanans serving in the armed services, as well as in the Montana National Guard, appreciate Cassandra, Col. Keefe, and their friends sticking up for them against a group of aging, pseudo-intellectual hipsters who were likely drawn to politics to "speak truth to power" but instead find themselves speaking treatment to sewage.