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In this issue…

_{Benson aluminum plant updates
Local news
Are we customers or owners?}

Smoke on the River

Benson’s having one of those “who are we, really?” summers. Folks packed the school room and the sidewalk to say an aluminum “recycling” plant isn’t just a line on a permit—it’s air in their kids’ lungs and what the San Pedro still means around here. ADEQ brought charts and the hometown crowd brought stories and concerns. Meanwhile, citizens have organized protests and recall petitions of the city council and mayor. Some say the project means growth, some say it’s a dangerous gamble with the health of the residents, others just don’t want an 88-ft tall monstrosity in their backyard.

@nicegirlfrnd

following up on my last video #benson #bensonAZ #pollution #maha #toxins #environmentalprotection #arizona

Local homesteader Misty Bloom created the No Benson Aluminum Plant facebook page which already has over 1,000 members, and her daughter Ashlyn has taken to TikTok where her video about the plant got 35k views. At least three other groups have formed who are all working on the issue. I’ve done what I can from Douglas, filing public records requests with the city and the county, and I’ve just scheduled a town hall meeting for Sunday the 24th. Spread the word if you know anyone in Benson.

Meanwhile….

Another swing: In the long San Pedro River fight, environmental groups sued the AZ Dept. of Water Resources, arguing the planned 28,000-home Vigneto community development needs a fresh, honest look at groundwater availability. There’s not enough, they say.

“The Sheriff” didn’t call: Phone hustlers are spoofing the badge again, leaning on fear and fake warrants to shake down vulnerable locals. The word from local outlets is simple: hang up and call the real CCSO yourself. If a stranger wants money over the phone, they don’t want justice — they want your rent.

A new straw for San Simon: After too many dry-mouth days, San Simon’s getting a new well to keep taps alive, with state and federal help smoothing the way.

Sparks in the Chiricahuas: Two small wildfires lit up pockets of the Chiricahuas yesterday — contained quickly but a reminder that monsoon season can throw lightning faster than crews can roll. Keep an eye on the ridgelines and your go-bag by the door.

Eyes in the sky: If you live near the border you might see more drones around. Cochise County is testing A.I.-powered drones that can stay aloft seven hours and drop down on border-crossing suspects and “ask them to stop”.

Star wars: Rep. Juan Ciscomani is actively championing Fort Huachuca to become home to a new U.S. Space Force mission — a squadron focused on space-domain awareness and early threat detection. It’s one of only four bases in the running, and Ciscomani and regional leaders argue our clear skies, technical muscle, and local goodwill make Huachuca the frontrunner.

The big kahuna: Looking for the vibe? I found it. This Saturday, The Jonquil Motel in Bisbee, 2pm-8pm.

Customers or owners?

When the gossip in Benson turned to the aluminum plant, it wasn’t just the usual environmental crowd raising eyebrows. Plenty of ruby-red Republicans, ranchers, homesteaders, newcomers and old-timers had the same thought — keep the skies clear, keep the water clean.

Matt Hickman, big shot over at the Herald/Review, couldn’t resist a jab: He said Benson Republicans were turning into “a bunch of tree-hugging granola-eaters” just because they didn’t want a big plant moving in.

His take? They should feel “flattered” Aluminum Dynamics picked their town — helping make Supervisor Frank Antenori’s “dream of an industrial park come true.”

Now, it’s easy to frame this like Hickman: The classic standoff — either you welcome every industrial project with open arms, or you’re just itching for government red tape to strangle the place. But maybe that black-and-white thinking isn’t as classic as it seems.

Deal or steal?

Back in the late ’30s, the National Association of Manufacturers was busy painting that picture for us. Through its National Industrial Information Council, NAM launched a coast-to-coast propaganda parade to sour folks on the New Deal and unions.

They flooded the country — millions of cartoons, columns, and leaflets. 45,000 billboards screaming the gospel of “free enterprise” to 65 million eyeballs a day. Films flickering in front of 18 million Americans.

The campaign’s power wasn’t in careful argument — it was propaganda bombing for the mind. Make “free enterprise” feel like apple pie, and make any public regulation smell like government overreach.

They knew we hate tyranny, so they jabbed that nerve hard. By 1944, NAM memos told members to frame the New Deal as “slavery” and to liken Roosevelt’s programs to Nazi-style “Directives” and “Mandates.” Ads lumped government investment with totalitarianism, while painting private investment as the road to jobs and freedom.

It’s 80 years later and narrative remains lodged in the public conversation: Every single industrial project is good, no matter the impacts — unless you’re a commie.

“The government” or governance?

We do love our independence out here in Cochise. Quiet nights, big skies, good neighbors when you need ’em and polite distance when you don’t. Government talk can taste like aspirin — necessary sometimes, but nobody asks for seconds.

Skepticism of power is healthy. The country’s founders felt it in their bones after a long scrape with a king. Madison called concentrated power “the very definition of tyranny,” so they built brakes, gears, and a kill switch into the political machine.

We prefer to run our own lives. So did they. That’s why they handed us a republic — “if you can keep it,” as Franklin quipped. The keeping part was always our job, not the job of some distant class of professionals.

We also know government can get clumsy and corrupt. It draws climbers and loudmouths, and even good folks in office make bad calls. The founders planned for that too: separate powers, checks on checks, and regular chances for citizens to change the crew.

We cherish liberty. But we also want clean water, a decent school, and a sheriff who’ll come when you call. Those good things don’t appear by magic; they’re the products of rules we create to protect us.

Liberty or limitations?

Every one of us already accepts limits for the sake of freedom. You can’t burn tires in your yard because the smoke fills your neighbor’s lungs. You can’t poison a well or blast music at two in the morning. We swim in a sea of regulations: from speed limits and hunting permits to term limits and anti-monopoly regulation.

Now here’s where the trouble crept in. Those big outfits in the 1930s, and ever after, hire clever wordsmiths to sell a simple story: government isn’t your tool, it’s your enemy. They wrap it in the flag, invoke “freedom,” and painted every rule as a boot on your neck.

The sales job did something poisonous: it split “the people” from “the government,” as if the sheriff, the school board, and the road crew weren’t our own neighbors from Benson, Bisbee, Willcox, Douglas, and Portal.

Once that split took hold, decent folks stepped back from public life. Who wants to join a club their friends call dirty? Politics became filled with brawlers who could take a punch, throw one, and smile for the camera. The serious work got drowned out by the show.

We all want better candidates. The founders weren’t social media influencers — they were readers, arguers, compromisers. They fought like cats behind closed doors and still came out with a framework that worked. But today’s game rewards drama over diligence, heat over light.

Complain or collaborate?

Here’s a simpler way to see it. Imagine we all co-own a restaurant in town. We hire a manager and staff. If the food’s cold and the service is lousy, we don’t write a nasty Yelp review about “those people.” We meet as owners and fix the hiring.

That’s our public life. We own this joint — counties, cities, districts, the whole mess. If management goes sideways, it’s our job to replace it. And if every candidate on the menu is bland or spoiled, we need to recruit better cooks, not moan.

What does that look like at the ground level of our everyday lives? It’s ordinary, steady work. Show up to a meeting once in a while. Ask real questions without grandstanding. Serve on a board for a year. Help a trustworthy neighbor put their name on a ballot. Hold them to their word with kindness and spine.

We won’t agree on everything; we don’t need to. A healthy community isn’t uniform — it’s sturdy. It has enough trust in the timbers that we can argue without burning the place down. That trust grows face-to-face: coffee at the diner, PTA nights, barn-raisings, and porch talks.

History backs this up. Jefferson said the people are the “only safe depository” of power. Lincoln called it government “of, by, and for” the people. Franklin reminded us the republic survives only if we keep it. None of them said, “Sit back and complain like a customer.”

So let’s line up values first, politics second. We believe in liberty, responsibility, and fair dealing. We believe nobody is above the rules and nobody is beneath the law. We believe neighbors should be free to live well — and prevented from wrecking each other’s lives.

Theirs or ours?

So let’s name the con. When corporations or cynical politicians tell us “government” is an alien thing, they’re asking us to distrust ourselves. If we buy it, we abandon the only tool that can keep their power in check: the system we own together.

When we act like customers, we get a circus. When we act like owners, we get service. Owners recruit better managers, define the house rules, and boot the rascals who break them. Owners also tip the good ones — support the quiet workhorses who fix roads, pay teachers, and keep wells safe.

Start small and local. One conversation with a neighbor beats a hundred angry internet posts. One competent name on a ballot beats a thousand sighs.

If you’ve got a young person in your life with guts and humility, tell them public service is honorable. Don’t scare them off by saying “everything in there is dirty.” If we only tell our best to stay away, who do you think will show up?

This is not a call to trust blindly. It’s a call to verify together. Read the budgets. Learn the trade-offs. Ask why this rule and not that one. Insist on sunlight. Cut the waste. And when the choice is between two mediocre options, start building a third option.

The job is big, the tools are small, and that’s fine. A mesquite root splits caliche one season at a time. Fences get mended one staple at a time. Homes get built one brick at a time. That’s how you keep a homestead and a republic.

Cochise County, we’ve got the temperament for this. Rugged, civil, stubborn in the right ways. Let’s stop writing one-star reviews of our own place and start acting like owners again. The sign on the door doesn’t say Their Government. It says Ours.

And if we keep it — patiently, fiercely, together — the service gets better, the food gets hot, and the joint feels like home.

Alright, enough preaching. You get the point. If our towns were wired together like a good fence — tight posts, no gaps — half the nonsense we deal with would never even sprout. The bad projects would shrivel on the vine, and we’d be left with only the mischief we choose to grow.

I took the summer to vanish into personal projects, work that doesn’t care about deadlines or inboxes. But a newsletter doesn’t write itself, and the keyboard keeps looking at me like a guilty dog.

Here’s where it gets fun. The platform that hosts this rag — BeeHiiv — will hand me three American dollars every time you click their “HomeBuddy” link below. No catches — just click, close it, and suddenly you’ve tipped me the price of a cheap beer without losing a cent.

Last time I ran one, sixteen of you clicked. And the money actually showed up.

So here’s your chance: hit the link below. Think of it as tossing a coin to keep the local town crier supplied with ink and bad coffee. It’s the easiest good deed you’ll do today.

Until next time — stay unpredictable, stay connected, and keep the coyotes guessing.

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