No headline

Are bottling companies targeting their ads to Flathead?

Is it me, or am I imagining the plethora of subtle advertisements that Flathead residents have been exposed to lately?

If your consciousness is yet to arise to this matter, kindly let me clue you in.

Over the past several months I have come across advertisements (through local media) sponsored by the Nestle Corporation and Coca-Cola.

The Nestle spots were evident via my Internet subscription to the Wall Street Journal. There they would be, on an almost daily basis, a combo ad that just popped up and presented a two-minute soliloquy by a knowledgeable middle-aged woman sitting in her kitchen expressing her thanks to how Nestles so kindly treated her rural community after it installed a water-acquiring plant. She implies that her community was so much better off after Nestles came in and started to removing the water. It appeared that everyone benefited from the company’s largesse! One big happy family … made so much better by this beneficent company.

Last month, I went to see a movie, and, lo and behold, during the endless half-hour previews, there was a 60 second spot on Coca-Cola… not about how delicious a Coke is, but, how much the Coca-Cola company loves small rural communities that it “partners” with to remove drinking water from them and how the company in turn helps the communities.

The reader may have come across more examples of this kind of “soften ‘em up” advertising (or should I say, propaganda).

The point is that we, the citizens of Flathead County, Montana, are being manipulated by outside corporate interests who are seemingly “fertilizing” our minds with subtle propaganda to come around to their point of view. That is, we should really appreciate all the great things that can come from a partnership with an outside agency who wishes to remove from us precious resources.

A larger point that is of concern to me is the likelihood that once Mr. Weaver builds out his water farm, he will turn the keys to it over to either Nestle, Coca Cola or some other outside corporate interests that will view his little water farm as just the right piece of property to build upon.

After that happens, look out! Hat in one hand and an empty tin cup in the other, Flathead residents will line up in front of Coca-Cola’s local drinking-water office and beg for more indulgences from Corporate Headquarters.

Judging by the total lack of support we have thus far received from our elected county commissioners, perhaps they are already standing there with their front pockets turned out, hands open, asking for indulgences to enhance their standing? —Alexander Bokor, Kalispell

Sen. Tester in need of intervention?

Sen. Tester has lost his way in Washington. Last month he voted against the tax cut bill that has our economy booming. Now he was one of only a handful of extremist senators who voted to keep the government shutdown going.

Sen. Tester no longer represents the people of Montana. To support giving citizenship to illegal immigrants over funding our military and children’s healthcare is unconscionable. I hope the informed voters of our state remember these errors in judgment at the ballot box in November.

Twelve years in Washington is enough. It’s time to elect a new Montana senator who actually represents our interests. —Marcus Esmay, Columbia Falls

DACA is OK if they pay us back

DACA will cost taxpayers $26 billion over the next 10 years, or $3,250 per year per DACA child as per the Congressional Budget Office.

Each year in addition to any federal income tax, they must pay $3,250 to stay here. No pay, adios!

Cost to educate a student for one year varies from $12,000 to $27,000; pay up for each year you were here.

If they want to become a citizen, much like in Switzerland, repay all welfare. I have had relatives in Poland die waiting to enter the United States legally. They should have come here illegally like the DACA kids.

Better yet, all you Democrats and liberals, set up a Gofundme account and bankrupt yourself, not me. These illegals have financially raped our treasury repeatedly.

Enough! —Walter Rucinski, Kalispell

Government shutdown: It’s not just a paid vacation, is it?

In regard to a government shutdown, I recall my time as a federal employee in Washington, D.C. With any threat of a shutdown, many federal employees were ecstatic, saying that they could sure use time off to visit family, go shopping, travel, get caught up on home projects, etc. They would brag about the fact that, although they wouldn’t get paid until the government reopened, they would collect back pay when they went back to work.

They considered the shutdown a paid vacation that they had not earned. So we, the taxpayers, pay those employees full salary for time they did not even come to work.

I guess they weren’t smart enough to realize that they too, as taxpayers, were paying for people to not work. And of course Congress continues to get paid during a shutdown, regardless. The only person to suffer from a government shutdown is the taxpayer. How sad for us. —Dee Armstrong, Bigfork