"…Blaine County and the town of Chinook are good places to live. Sure we have a drug problem, but that shouldn't set us apart as a crime capitol. Our problems here are no different than any other community."
Max Maddox
Editor, Chinook Opinion
April 15, 1998
HAVRE — Four months to the day after Mike Perry was forced out of Chinook, the editorial policy at Perry's former newspaper abruptly changed.
A subtle attempt at perception manipulation or mind control (MK) has taken place.
Now Chinook is "no different than any other community". I suppose that Max Maddox means that all American communities have "multi-ton shipments of heroin and cocaine" coming into the local airport protected by the local corrupt (former) county prosecutor.
Or does it mean that the four Chinook law officers who saw the planes being unloaded- and tried to do something about it- and who were then fired were lying ? Or was former Coast Guard intelligence officer David Hume lying? Hume says that a federal informant admitted to flying into Chinook with big loads of cocaine from Canada.
No, Max Maddox wants all his readers to believe that talk of major smuggling operations into Chinook by Perry, and others, were not "factual" but filled with "suspicion and innuendo".
Editor Maddox tried to find a common ground with Al Hauff's essay "Time For Truth" which tacitly agreed with Perry but repudiated CIA operative Charles Hayes, retired CIA officer Chip Tatum, and Retired Coast Guard intelligence officer David Hume. The Hauff piece also contradicted claims made by tribal members on the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations.
It's wonderful that editor (and Sheriff candidate) Max Maddox appreciates guns and has passed out literature at gun stores all the way to Orange County, California. A patriot like Al Hauff, believes that this is a healthy attitude. However, Editor Maddox failed to mention in his editorial the near disaster in the not too distant past, where he sold a few guns that didn't belong to him. Oh well, that is a bit off the integrity subject isn't it?
Max Maddox, I suggest you hop in your Chinook Opinion staff car, if it will start, and head down to Livingston, and pick up the April issue of the Montana Pioneer. Put on your reading glasses and take a gander at page 5. You'll find that filmmaker Daniel Hopsicker has written a pretty fair expose "The Big Sky Cartel" which mentions your opponent Sheriff Pete Paulsen.
Hopsicker quotes Sheriff Paulsen as follows: "When I called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police I got a big old run around at first", he stated. "Finally, I received word that there was an indictment for Terry Nelson, but they wouldn't confirm what it was for."
Do you know what the indictment was for ? Or do you know who Terry Nelson is ? Well, please do find out before you start talking to people about "suspicion and innuendo". Maybe you can tie Sheriff Paulsen into some "vast conspiracy" to slander a candidate for president or something. You surely can find something can't you ?
After all, you do own the Chinook Opinion. That is, after you spent $450,000 to operate a competing newspaper at a loss , and then purchase Perry's paper.
You can write anything you want. You can tell people in Blaine County what a wonderful fellow attorney Don Ranstrom is. Be sure to tell them you worked on the Cowan murder investigation a bit, and that the hitmen are lying now about who they say ordered the hit.
Editor Maddox, you can print whatever you want in your newspaper. But so can the tribal members on Fort Belknap who (I hear) are trying to get another newspaper going. So can Beverly Bad Horse of Zurich. So can a Havre newspaper who is considering expanding distribution into your market. So can a few of us out here on the internet.
Free speech is a wonderful idea, and an inalienable right. Accordingly, so is free thought. Max Maddox, you and your bully boy cohort, lawyer Don Ranstrom, are in for the rides of your lives. People are not going to be told what to think- like in China- when it is dead wrong. County Attorney Mark Harshman is starting to wake up now. So is Sheriff Paulsen. So is Vic Miller and lots of others.
Max Maddox, you're going to learn that Mike Perry didn't control what people were thinking in Blaine County. Perry told the truth honestly as best he could. Mind control involves lies. It is a subtle form of propaganda. MK can be verbal or non-verbal.
An example of non-verbal mind control occurred last spring when Mike Perry and his wife was chased about the countryside by your cohort, Don Ranstrom. Mary Perry decided at that point, that enough was enough - and started making plans to leave Chinook. This was clearly perception manipulation. Another example of mind control (in the extreme)was the two bullets fired into the heads of Richard Cowan and Bernadette Doiron. Guess they won't be telling anybody about drugs coming into Chinook now will they ? Makes a "keep the cat in the bag" attitude pretty common among drug informers doesn't it ?
Now, we're being told to think that the Canadian drug flights didn't happen. It was all just "innuendo and suspicion" started by mean old Mike Perry.
Those of us who have taken the time to study these things know better. That speaks volumes about Max Maddox.
