If Jeff Ament is such a great dude, why has he argued to keep bicycles out of Missoula’s new skate park?

And what is it about Pearl Jam fandom that makes you so superior? Isn’t it possible that someone can find Pearl Jam’s music quite bland and ininteresting? I think the better way to encourage votes for Jon Tester is shown by Matt Singer.

Matt, thanks for your wiser advocacy.

I intended no “slam” and I’m sorry you read it that way. I’m also sorry that people like you find it necessary to be on “battle mode” instead of trying to persuade others to vote for Tester.

I decided after research time spent yesterday, courtesy of people FRIENDLIER and MORE HELPFUL and LESS CONDESCENDING than you in this thread above, to vote for Jon Tester and to volunteer for his campaign.

You might do well to consider the fact that it’s very possible to read Howie’s post as I did, simply because I said that’s how I read it. If you think it necessary to belittle those whom you ought to be trying to persuade, I submit your hate and anger are misplaced.

Thanks for your juvenilia. I’d suggest keeping your mouth shut and keyboard still if Post 143 is your method of “winning votes” for Jon Tester. I’d suggest emulating Matt Singer perhaps.

Best wishes in gaining new comprehension skills, buddy.

(104).hmmm.this one hits a lurker’s nerve, VL!

Poster boy for Pearl Jam? What a SLAM!! OOH!!

Yep, Jon Tester’s longtime buddy Jeff Ament, Pearl Jam’s bass player, organized a fundraising concert that took place in Missoula on 08/29/2005. Pearl Jam played the Adams Event Center.

He (Jeff) and his brother run Amescorp, a company that, yep, prints POSTERS and does most of PJ’s artwork (for the uninitiated, they practically make their albums by hand…to the point of Ed Vedder typing all liner notes on his manual typewriter.)

I’m real sorry that some must ridicule the support of America’s most prominent political rock’n’roll group…hell, America’s most prominent band, PERIOD. 15 years of excellence in music AND political activism. Vedder quotes Howard Zinn in his lyrics (”Down”) and PJ led the 2004 VFC tour to dump Bush. PJ played Voters for Choice benefit in 1998 at Constitution Hall, and is no newcomer to firestorms over politics – they have performed benefits for their entire career, which, by the way, hardly follows the ‘dilletante rock star’ script that conservatives use as a weapon against folks who happen to be friends with Robbins and Sarandon.

Anyone in Raleigh, NC, Charlotte, NC, or Nashville, TN on the Pearl Jam 2003 tour, (these dates April 15-18, 2003 – less than one month after the Iraq war started) can testify to the fact that Vedder fought off boos (a few frat boy rednex) over his and the whole band’s LOUD opposition to the war. I was at all 3 – hardly a high level political conference…I had a couple assholes who spent $29 (yes) a ticket to boo the band.

Rememeber the story about the Denver concert (first show of that tour) where 20 (out of 15,000) people walked out after Vedder ‘impaled’ a GW Bush mask on his mic stand)? It was all over the compliant MSM that year along with antiwar/anitBush words from the Chicks, Ronstadt, and Robbins&Sarandon (being tossed off the Baseball Hall of Fame speakers list.)

What more do people want?

Somebody has to be in the vanguard. We Pearl Jam fans (left leaning ones anyway) knew ALL about Tester last year. Never been to Montana…most I know about it is the Zappa song.

Save the snide remarks (about those fighting the hardest for a new way and a new guy) for those we all can agree to hate – Republicans.

very true, theExile.

and what is most disturbing is that denying the responsibilities of personhood is THE WHOLE POINT of corporate status.

a good portion of my working career since 1989 has been as a corporate law specialist. I quit in 2003 because no matter how hard I tried to get clients to remain humane in their operation of their corporations, their overriding desire was to get all the benefits and accept none of the responsibilities of legal personhood. a review of corporate laws and cases decided under those laws reveals that this is not only commonplace, but the very point of incorporating. a review of current events shows how devastating corporate powers have become.

my blog’s post from yesterday covers this subject, and links to the following frightening development from the PNAC goonsquad…

http://www.businessweek.com/bw…..3_2210.htm

the more western Montana becomes the sovereign state of West Coast Yuppies, the more I consider moving north to an inland BC town. your mayor’s move is quite understandable. I won’t trash your town’s sanctity by asking you to identify what town you live in. from my POV, most any town in BC is an improvement on the USA.

The Coporations want all the rights of “personhood” but are unwilling to accept the responsibilities of that status. How often do I have to hear (as expressed by the CEO of ExxonMobil just the other day) that their only responsibilty is to their stockholders. That’s like a father who has the right to kill and rob everybody in the neighborhood as long as it is in order to improve the diet, wardrobe or whatever of his own children. A father has a primary resposiblity to his children compared to other people, but not at the exspense of his neighbors. Likewise Coporations have a resposibility to their stockholders, but no divine right to rip off everybody else or destroy the planet everyone has to live on to benefit their shareholders.

Who ever first noticed that the typical Corporation exhibits all the characteristics of a sociopath was observant indeed! The more sociopathic the Corp, the more successful it is in Bushworld, the recent conviction of Kenny-boy and Jeff notwithstanding. It remains to be seen if the conviction stands, or if it does they do any real time in a real jail or if the appeals are stretched out until they are both dead anyway from overeating thanks to the stashed away ill-gotten gains they each undoubtably have waiting in some jurisdiction with no extradition treaty. I really doubt they are being held in custody pending appeal or sentencing.

But the simple fact is that Tester really is out there on issues. I took a look at your blog. Obviously foreign policy is of interest to you. Tester is calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Morrison won’t answer the question. Tester opposes trade deals that hurt famers, ranchers, and workers. Morrison speaks in Friedmanesque “World is Flat” platitudes.

Tester has a heck of a record on everything from privacy issues (he sponsored and passed a cell phone communications privacy bill in ‘98 and voted with the overwhelming majority of the Montana legislature to call for major reforms of the PATRIOT Act — the reforms that Feingold pushed for with bipartisan backing) to choice (he’s responsible for contraceptive equity in Montana) to energy (he sponsored and passed two wind energy bills) to agricultural policy (he sponsored and passed country of origin labeling) to health care policy (he sponsored and passed Insure Montana and Big Sky Rx, the two principle health care measures in the most recent session).

I’ll be writing up an issues comparison at Left in the West soon. At least for me, it’s Tester by a mile.