Mainstream Media Erred About the 'Mountain Men' Kidnapping (satire)

After researching the Abducted and Abducted II movies which were filmed in Vancouver and in Squamish in 1986 and 1994, I read about the manhunt that began in July 1984 that inspired this non-exploitational exploitation movie series.

What precipitated the manhunt was the shooting of a kidnapping of a Olympic biathlon champion Keri Swenson and the murder of one of the searchers, Alan Goldstein. When it ended in December 1984, the capture of the men, a father Don Nichols and his son Dan Nichols, was completed without the firing of a single shot.

According to news reports at the time of the kidnapping, Goldstein was shot dead by Don Nichols due to the deceased carrying a gun. Around the same time, Dan Nichol critically wounded Ms Swenson.

Over the intervening years, an authorized biography was filmed by NBC in 1987.

Now the son is in news again with a timeline beginning in 2011 when he was busted at an outdoor concert in the camping area. Since then he managed to get bail and was on the lam for three months before turning himself in, according to the sheriff whose officers arrested him.

However, the US Marshals who detained Nichol dispute this claim, stating that "old-fashioned police work" contributed to his arrest. While the sheriff is using dispatcher tapes to back up his claim that Nichol turned himself in, only phone records would verify his claim but would be irrelevant because of the arrest.

IMO it is likely the US Marshals want to quash the police chief's spin, which paints Nichol as cooperative and willing to turn himself in. On the other hand, the US Marshals' spin makes me suspect Nichol might have been uncooperative and willing to avoid capture. Besides, getting busted in a Walmart parking implies a third possibility, his arrest was due to a tip off by Walmart who could request their name not be associated with a known criminal.

My motive for posting in my blog about this old crime is to point out that the articles repeats the error that the mainstream media made in 1984 when the son and his father were dubbed "mountain men".

By doing so without deriding the term or at least explaining how it came about, the local paper of Bozeman in southwest Montana is perpetuating the "mountain men" meme without just cause because neither men were actually mountain men.

Instead, they are the rural Montana version of homeless men. However, homelessness in Montana doesn't sell in the mainstream media. Indeed, Ms Swenson's father stated that the two men were anything but mountain men because they left her for dead after she got shot.

It is the opinion of anonymous to another paper in nearby Livingston that Dan Nichols is a murderer by accountability, in addition to being a burglar, common thief, kidnapper, and now drug dealer for a medical marijuana dispensary that the DEA wants closed for running an illegal marijuana grow-op enterprise.

However, in the case of the enterprise, the arrest of the Flor family contributed to the early demise of the father, Richard in August 2012, a mere four months after sentencing.

Pleading for a suspended sentence for Richard Flor, his daughter Kristin stated that jail time would only damage his health. So she asked for leniency, offering to care for her father who deteriorate rapidly since being arrested the previous year.

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References:

‘Mountain men’ kidnap-murder captured world’s attention - Bozeman Daily Chronicle: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/100/newsmakers/article_b7b40ff8-c53e-11e0-b014-001cc4c03286.html

More related stories in Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

• Aug 25, 2011 - Younger “mountain man” pleads not guilty to drug and six other charges: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/crime/article_078036ca-cead-11e0-b135-001cc4c002e0.html
• Mar 22, 2012 - Younger “mountain man” on the lam again: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/crime/article_71ac3c98-743d-11e1-a336-001871e3ce6c.html
• Apr 19, 2012 - Federal warrant issued for 1980s 'mountain man': http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/crime/article_bb20c684-8a48-11e1-b504-0019bb2963f4.html
• May 23, 2012 - Marshals: 'Mountain man' didn't turn self in: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/crime/article_0a295180-a4ff-11e1-8721-001a4bcf887a.html

Infamous Dan Nichols - Montana Pioneer: http://www.mtpioneer.com/2012-April-Infamous-Dan-Nichols.html

Kari Swenson - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Swenson

A Made-for-Television Movie Brings Biathlete Kari Swenson Face-to-Face with Her Past - People March 16, 1987 Vol. 27 No. 11: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20095839,00.html

Montana man sentenced to 4 years in federal prison for growing at least 1,000 marijuana plants - ICE.GOV : https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1301/130123missoula.htm

Miles City medical marijuana family sentenced: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/miles-city-medical-marijuana-family-sentenced/article_2b668645-7cc7-531b-bd75-293ca54d5923.html

K
http://the-human-solution.org/tag/kristin-flor/
http://the-human-solution.org/tag/kristin-flor/

A Lone Pacifist Speaks (satire)

One by one, our rights in B.C. are being lost.

While our right to protest has become eroded by legislation, not all the protesters are in solidarity. Some of them are even throwing a monkey wrench into the struggle.

However, I refuse to become militant. For non-violent confrontation works for me.

The B.C. Liberals haven't changed from my grandparents' days.

Today, it isn't the Japanese community that's under attack. Now it's almost anyone who won't follow the corporate agenda, and become the sheep at photo-ops where the participants gleefully throw our tax dollars at symbols of the attack on the environment, on the homeless, and on anyone with the guts to stand up to them.

I refuse to follow the New Left because they vowed to bring disorder and chaos; and I refuse to follow the NDP because their compassion is shallow.

For those people in power will not resist the temptation to abuse their authority. Lord Acton still has it right after all those years: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

THE ONLY ANSWER IS NON-VIOLENT CONFRONTATION.

Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect -- the four truths I live by.

It is time for a change, people of BC. Big Business should not be contributing to a political campaign of an election, but this is why the BC Liberals are still in power. It is also why the Conservatives are in power federally.

Thus, federally, the Green Party gets my vote every four years, while provincially, it will be the Greens once again.

My reason for this is because the People have never been heard by any other party. If you think they were, then you are mistaken. As long as first-past-the-post elections are held, the voice of the People will continued to be ignored.

For it is a tradition to only pick either the Liberals or the Conservatives, but it is Big Business that almost always supports the winner because they pay for the disingenuous politicking. This includes the mainstream media in BC.

Everything on the television is merely propaganda, be it advertising or PR from Victoria.

Yet mainstream media will filter out alternate views that challenge the status quo, usually by banning it. Censorship has kept out the fact that much of the daily news is slanted in such a way as to favor the neo-conservatives, given that they have a lot of money to sue people who reveal a truth everyone but they want known.

Therefore this never was a free country. Since WW 1, Canada has routinely interned enemy aliens, be it Ukrainians, Japanese Canadians, peaceful German farmers, and even Doukhabour children kidnapped from their parents.

If this was a free country, then it would legalize marijuana. Instead, Ottawa made marijuana laws so tough that if three or more pro-marijuana farmers agreed to grow and distribute marijuana for medical reasons, then they will be falsely charged with conspiracy to traffick and spend a minimum of ten years in jail. Being that there are more than three people in that medical marijuana operation, it is also gang-related. For that they will get another 10 years. This is why in BC, the police claim that "all grow-ops are not mom & pop; they are gang-related." In this way does Ottawa manufacture gang members through their drug crime laws.


If this was a free country, then prostitution would be legalized and made a health concern too. Pandering and pimping however would remain a crime. Any dissent by the moral minorities can easily be remedied by showing them how many of their brothers were Johns, and that repression of prostitution is done mainly to avoid competition with the second oldest profession: religion.

Sadly, we cannot ban politicians because if politics were banned, we'd have more sociopaths who promise us heaven but cause hell when they can't live up to their promises.

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Original post: March 10, 2007 4:32 PM

Endless Craving

Synopsis:
A man and woman meet, fall in love and marries. The husband corrects wife's spelling.

The wife refuses to wash husband's socks because they are stiff with dried sweat.

Later, after several kids (3), the wife claims kids are like hubbie.

The hubbie now talks through morning paper, while the wife tries to clue hubbie into #1 son's drug habit; then hubbie claims he'll snap out of it.

#1 son has nervous breakdown due to bickering between spouses, and rest of children are taken by wife during separation.

The hubbie and #1 son enjoy a spliff together, and consider running a grow op to finance alimony and child support.

The hubbie and #1 son get busted in pot raid by police. At this point the hubbie considers suicide.

#1 attempts suicide when they are charged for grow op and become another statistic in the war on marijuana.

Later the father and son become medical marijuana advocates after stint in jail. Secretly they also grow pot to supply gangs.

Moral of story: endless craving is the root of suffering and its reality ruins lives.

Commentary on Massive pot bust made near Prince George

http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/95176849.html

June 2, 2010: This is not a a new item of importance, except to illustrate how the war on drugs works: publicize grow-ops as "evil" and demonize marijuana.

It too is a form of oppression against a harmless drug made harmful by act of parliament (the drug laws in Canada in particular).

Ottawa's stance on marijuana is what continues to criminalize marijuana and to demonize pro-420 activists and the medical marijuana community.

Free Marc Emery NOW!!

The Propaganda of Drug Prohibition

"The propaganda that caused people to believe that Germans were a master race and Jews were an inferior race and needed to be exterminated has an exact parallel in the war on marijuana. You create false evils, create fear and hatred for a certain class of people and proceed to inflict horrific punishment on the targets of your lies. All the while seizing totalitarian power for yourself and your cronies based on the need for people to abandon their normal concepts of right and wrong and leave those decisions entirely to the propagandists." -- Daryl Verville, in his documentary The Naked Queen

In a recent example, the US FDA indicates it has bought the propaganda about medical marijuana which it claims has no benefits. At the same time, the FDA has historically allowed SSRI anti-depressants go on the market while pharmaceutical companies have hidden data which shows risk of suicide amongst patients, especially teenagers.

Meanwhile, marijuana has been considered a dangerous narcotic which causes anxiety and paranoia, but only among one out of four people who have used it since they were teens. This means that among people who use it occasionally (less than once a week) as adults, more than 75% of them will experience no ill effects, apart from mild intoxication, increased ability to get to sleep at night and associated changes in sleep patterns. In short, for the majority of users, marijuana is a non-addictive alternative to habit-forming benzodiazepines, used by consumers by prescription as sleep aids and sedatives.

Does the propaganda against marijuana indicate the relative harmlessness of the drug when compared to cigarettes (nicotine) and alcohol? No, most anti-marijuana literature addresses the health risks, including cognitive deficits and especially high use side effects, and claims marijuana is addictive. Indeed, most anti-marijuana literature uses subtle scare tactics and promotes abstinence.

However, neither the pro-marijuana nor the anti-marijuana proponents advocate moderation of use. It is barely brought up in debates for or against the drug.

Quite possibly, moderation of use may be covered under harm reduction. If moderation works for some alcoholics, it can work for marijuana users.

"Because let's face it: there's no bigger pusher than the state. There are far more dangerous and mind-altering drugs than marijuana being pushed on us every day by huge pharmaceutical companies, with the blessings of our doctors and the government. And no one's raiding the drug companies." -- Bonnie Burstow, senior lecturer at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education