Lots Happening On The Lisa For Maine Campaign! #BlackLivesMatter

Dear Friends,

This week has been a busy one as our campaign continues to use social distancing in creative ways to get the word out. Dud Hendrick, Meredith Bruskin and Bruce Gagnon are seen here bannering in Belfast yesterday where they were also interviewed by a reporter for the local paper, Village Soup. It was the 3rd day in a row bannering as a group that also included Rob Shetterly, Starr Gilmartin, Connie Jenkins, Frank Donnelly, and Russell Wray at various times in Ellsworth and Bangor. Big thanks to all these dedicated volunteers!

Meanwhile, I went down to Bath Iron Works early on Monday and Tuesday morning to support the strike called by 87% of members in Machinists S6, the biggest union at BIW. Mark and I hung a large banner on the side of our van and did drive by support of picket lines at both the north and south gates. I livestreamed on Facebook as Mark slowly drove and workers responded with enthusiasm to support expressed from all over the country in the comments on the livestream (now saved as recorded videos here and here).

To undermine the union, BIW has been bringing in non-union laborers as contractors to avoid paying its Maine workers fairly. BIW kept $45 million in state taxes deducted from workers' paychecks under a law we lobbied against in the Maine legislature. Owner General Dynamics can well afford to give the skilled and trained workers at BIW fair compensation, and we continue to call for conversion to a demilitarized Green New Deal building things we need far more than war ships and that economists say would create thousands of additional jobs (see my op-ed in the Bangor Daily News about that here).

Also, please enjoy our new campaign song "Lisa for Mainers" composed by endorser Tom Neilson and performed by Tom and Lynn Waldron in this video on the LfM YouTube channel. 

Our wonderful endorsers are urging support for our campaign within their own networks, including Kathy Kelly at Voices for Creative Nonviolence plus Margaret Flowers, MD who has offered to do a health care educational event with us! I am so grateful for everyone's support. If you haven't signed on as an endorser or asked your networks to consider doing so, you can find the tools to do that here on our website.

Stay tuned for our statement today on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act before the House of Representatives, which is a good start but does not go nearly far enough. Defunding police to allocate resources known to reduce crime in our communities is a must, as is addressing the need for reparations to the descendants of enslaved Africans. Supporting the demand of Black Lives Matter to dismantle systems of oppression will be a major focus this summer as young people especially have vowed to not give up until their demands are met!

Big props to LfM Volunteer Coordinator Kelly Merrill, also a photojournalist par excellence, who has been covering BLM actions around the state during June.

Be well out there!

Warmly,

Lisa
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My Response To Leah Baldacci

The Maine Bar Association inexplicably entertained a racist diatribe from attorney Leah Baldacci of Lipman & Katz this week. You can hear the recording of their meeting here on YouTube, and Ms. Baldacci's remarks begin around the 23:00 mark.

I used her firm's contact form to send her the following feedback just now, in the spirit of the message I hear often from Black, Indigenous, and other people of color: 

Y'all white people need to get your girl i.e. talk to other white people and challenge their racist statements and/or behavior.

June 20, 2020

Dear Ms. Leah Baldacci,

I would like to explain white privilege to you, and why it is neither an accusation nor biased to observe that white women like me and you have it. My dad explained it to me when I was about 6 or 7 years old by saying, You are white and that makes you lucky. It does not make you better than people of other races, but it does mean that many doors will be open to you that wouldn't be if you were not white.

Throughout my years in central Maine I've heard a lot of pushback on the notion of white privilege. This is usually from low-income white people who say some version of, I may have grown up white but I certainly didn't grow up privileged, thus confusing class privilege with white privilege. 

There is also quite a history of white, privileged women making remarks such as you did recently to the Maine Bar Association. Sufragettes we were taught to revere as champions of women deliberately excluded Black women from their movement, or literally relegated them to the back of the parade. Not a good look.

Here's how I've successfully explained white privilege in the 21st century to those open to considering the notion: 

Did your teenager ever do dumb stuff that brought him or her to the attention of police? Most people in Maine will answer in the affirmative. My second question is: Were you afraid they would die as a result? Most will answer no. And that, in a nutshell, is white privilege.

You may want to do some more reading on the subject of intersectionality (how various systems of oppression such as sexism and racism intersect and amplify each other). Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw developed the theory of intersectionality. She's a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, specializing in race and gender issues, and worth a read.

Finally, I will pass along what Black, Indigenous and other people of color tell white people who have made blunders in speaking about race in public: impact counts more than intention. And also: white people, you need to do the work with other white people around their racism.

Respectfully submitted,
Lisa Savage

Solon

Exciting Signers Support Lisa Savage For US Senate

Social distancing banner held by Charlie Backus & Palma Ryan - Portland May, 2020

Thanks to Bruce Gagnon for his work on gathering a list of supporters for our US Senate campaign!

Dear Friends,

We, the undersigned, are writing to you in support of Lisa Savage’s US Senate campaign in Maine against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).  The November election in Maine for that seat will be a Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) race.  There will be no ‘spoiler effect’ this time.

Lisa is running as an Independent Green. In her long-time peace and climate change activism, she has specialized in linking the Pentagon’s carbon footprint and our climate crisis. She founded the Maine Natural Guard to do just that important work. As an educator, Lisa has experience as a public school teacher and former union negotiator.

In Maine, Lisa has also led efforts to convert the Bath Iron Works shipyard away from constructing lethal Naval Destroyers and toward creating sustainable technologies that help us deal with climate crisis.  Lisa advocates converting to commuter rail, tidal power and other much needed systems. Studies show that such a transformation would create more jobs for people in Maine.  Imagine having a national voice in the U.S. Senate calling for the entire military industrial complex to be converted – unless we do so quickly we will not succeed in dealing with our greatest threat, the threat of what we’re doing to our own environment.

Of course Lisa also strongly supports Medicare4All, erasing student debt, a $15 minimum wage and many other issues that are vital to the survival of working and poor people across the country. She’s lately spoken out against the recent massive bailouts for Wall Street under the guise of virus relief while many people have yet to receive their promised $1,200 check.

Speaking about the recent murder of George Floyd by police in Minnesota, Lisa said, “People are fed up with unaccountable policing that targets Black men, women, and children and deals out injury, death, humiliation, and destruction of lives without meaningful consequences. Hundreds of thousands have rightly taken to the streets in all 50 states, including here throughout Maine. We have seen countless examples of militarized police forces instigating violence as these crowds of frustrated and angry citizens seek to peacefully assemble and express themselves, as is protected in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

We hope you will join us in doing what you can to help support Lisa’s important campaign. Rarely do we see such a vital opportunity to impact the national debate as Maine’s Senate race will be one of the most watched in the nation.

You can learn more about Lisa at her web site https://www.lisaformaine.org/.  Many of us have donated to her campaign.  We hope you will share this letter widely across your community so that others who share our deep concerns may learn more about Lisa. Twitter: @LisaforMaine  Facebook: LisaforMaine

We are at a crucial moment in world history.  We must work in every possible way to bring these issues to the public.  We are grateful for Lisa and her team for their good work on all our behalf.

For people, planet and peace,

(Organizations listed for identification purposes only)

• Dawn Neptune Adams (Penobscot activist) Bangor, Maine
• Peggy Akers (Nurse practitioner, VFP Maine) Portland, Maine
• Nathan Albright (Writer, Maryhouse Catholic Worker) New York, New York
• Doug Allen (Professor, peace and justice scholar, and activist) Orono, Maine
• Jim Allen (Alabama Veteran for Peace) Lanett, Alabama
• Nancy Allen (Activist, Green Party member) Brooksville, Maine
• Ashley Bahlkow (Currently nurturing family, working on land access & food justice initiatives and sharing garden space) North Yarmouth, Maine
• Ajamu Baraka (National Organizer, Black Alliance for Peace) New York, New York
• Ellen Barfield (Phil Berrigan Memorial VFP chapter) Baltimore, Maryland
• Elizabeth Barger (Freedom Press publisher, artist, poet, CODEPINK activist) Summertown, Tennessee 
• Medea Benjamin (Author and codirector of CODEPINK) Washington DC
• Frida Berrigan (2019 Green Party Mayoral Candidate & author of ‘It Runs In The Family: On Being Raised By Radicals and Growing Into Rebellious Motherhood’) New London, Connecticut
• Justin Beth (Green Party of the U.S. Co-Chair, MGIP SC Member, PGIC Co-Chair) Portland, Maine
• Toby Blome (Drone resistance organizer) El Cerrito, California
• Commander (Ret) Leah Bolger (President World BEYOND War, past president Veterans For Peace) Corvallis, Oregon
• Francis A. Boyle (Professor of international law at the University of Illinois, College of Law) Champaign, Illinois
• Meredith Bruskin (FNP, Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County) Swanville, Maine
• Chris Buchanan (Owner, CBC Carpentry) Searsport, Maine
• Dr. Helen Caldicott (Anti-nuclear advocate) New South Wales, Australia
• Jonathan Carter (Director, Forest Ecology Network) Lexington Twp, Maine
• Ralph Chapman (Retired Applied Physicist & recent member of Maine's Legislature, the only Green Independent party member during his last term) Brooksville, Maine
• Judy Collins (Peace-justice advocate/singer/songwriter, Vine & Fig Tree Community) Lanett, Alabama
• Gerry Condon (Veterans For Peace) Clearlake, California
• Priti Gulati Cox (Artist, activist) Salina, Kansas
• Stan Cox (Scientist, writer) Salina, Kansas
• Bob Dale (VFP Maine, PeaceWorks) Brunswick, Maine
• Barry Dana (Native educator, past chief Penobscot Nation) Solon, Maine
• Ellen Davidson (Activist & photojournalist) New York, New York
• Joseph de Rivera (Senior Research Scholar, Clark University) Brunswick, Maine
• Christine A. DeTroy (PeaceWorks) Brunswick, Maine
• Jacqui Deveneau (Chair of the Maine Green Women's Caucus) Portland, Maine
• Denise Dreher (Catholic Peace & Justice activist) Biddeford, Maine
• Reginald A. Dunton (Grassroots activist) Freeport, Maine
• Leonard Eiger (Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action) North Bend, Washington
• Pat Elder (Military Poisons Project) St. Mary’s City, Maryland
• Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon papers, Senior Fellow PERI, UMass Amherst) Kensington, California
• Catherine Erdman (Peace activist) Temple, Maine
• Jodie Evans (Co-founder, CodePink) Venice, California
• Margaret Flowers (Co-director Popular Resistance) Baltimore, Maryland
• Bruce K. Gagnon (Peace & justice activist) Brunswick, Maine
• Manuel Garcia, Jr. (Climate blogger & retired physics professor) Berkeley, California
• Ann Garrison (Independent Journalist) Oakland, California
• Betsy Garrold (Retired Nurse Midwife, former Maine Green Independent Party Co-Chair, President of Food for Maine’s Future, homesteader, lobbyist, Mother) Knox, Maine
• Carol Gilbert, OP (ICAN) Washington, DC
• Starr C. Gilmartin (Licensed Clinical Social worker) Trenton, Maine
• Holly Graham (Singer/songwriter, activist) Olympia, Washington
• Chris Hedges (Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and author) Princeton, New Jersey
• Susan Hellewell (Artist and retired science teacher) Bingham, Maine
• Dud Hendrick (VFP Maine) Deer Isle, Maine
• Eric Herter (Filmmaker, VFP Maine) Brunswick, Maine
• Matthew Hoh (Marine Corps Iraq war veteran, 100% disabled veteran, Senior Fellow at Center for International Policy) Raleigh, North Carolina
• Fred Horch (Green Independent Candidate for Representative to the Legislature) Brunswick, Maine
• Tamara Hunt (Family & Child Welfare Advocate, Public Policy USM Graduate Student) Portland, Maine
• Connie Jenkins (Catholic peace and justice activist) East Blue Hill, Maine
• Ken Jones (Retired USM educator) Swannanoa, North Carolina
• Kyle Kajihiro (Board Member, Hawaiʻi Peace and Justice) Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
• Tarak Kauff (Editor in Chief of Peace & Planet News) Woodstock, New York
• Kathy Kelly (Co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence) Chicago, Illinois
• Lynn Kelly (Retired physician) Mankato, Minnesota
• Ed Kinane (Upstate Drone Action, anti-militarism activist) Syracuse, New York
• Thomas Kircher (Interfaith Chaplain) Biddeford, Maine
• John Kiriakou (Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer & Former Senior Investigator, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations) Washington DC
• Pat LaMarche (Former Maine gubernatorial candidate & 2004 candidate for V-P) Carlisle, Pennsylvania
• Nydia Leaf (Granny Peace Brigade) New York, New York
• Debbie Leighton (PeaceWorks) West Bath, Maine
• Richard Brown Lethem (Artist, VFP) Brunswick, Maine
• Sass Linneken (Community organizer) Bangor, Maine
• Stan Lofchie (VFP Maine) Brunswick, Maine
• Alfred L. Marder (US Peace Council) New Haven, Connecticut
• Betsy Marsano (Working to overthrow the duopoly for over 30 years) Belfast, Maine
• Kenneth E. Mayers (Major USMCR ret’d, VFP) Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Natasha Mayers (Editor in chief of Maine Arts Journal: UMVA Quarterly, Union of Maine Visual Artists) Whitefield, Maine
• Kelly Merrill (Activist, journalist, organizer) Portland, Maine
• Karl Meyer (Coordinator Greenlands Catholic Worker community) Nashville, Tennessee
• Peter S. Morgan Jr. (VFP Maine) Raymond, Maine
• John Morris (Retired teacher, VFP Maine) New Gloucester, Maine
• Chris Nelson (Chico Peace Endeavor) Chico, California
• Tom Neilson (Singer, songwriter) Greenfield, Massachusetts
• K. J. Noh (Scholar, Journalist, Peace Activist) San Francisco, California
• Jon Olsen (Former co-chair MGIP) Jefferson, Maine
• Koohan Paik-Mander (Coordinator, Just Transition Hawaii Coalition) Hanokaa, Hawaii 
• Mike Michalski (Former Marine opposed to war) South Portland, Maine
• Rosalie Paul (Peaceworks) Brunswick, Maine
• Ilze Petersons (Peace & justice organizer and activist) Orono, Maine
• Sam Pfeifle (Vice-Chair, MSAD 15 School Board) Gray, Maine
• Cecile Pineda (Author) Berkeley, California
• Ron Placone (Comedian & YouTube host) Pasadena, California
• Ardeth Platte, OP (ICAN) Washington, DC
• Doug Rawlings (President of VFP Maine chapter) Chesterville, Maine
• John Rensenbrink (Professor of Government Emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder Maine Green Independent Party & US Green Party) Topsham, Maine
• Richard Rhames (Family farmer, Public access TV activist) Biddeford, Maine
• Kim Rich (Water District Trustee) Portland, Maine
• Judy Robbins (Let Cuba Live), Sedgwick, Maine
• Coleen Rowley (Retired FBI Agent, former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel and Whistleblower) Apple Valley, Minnesota
• Robert Schaible (Chairperson, Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights) Portland, Maine
• Gladys Schmitz, SSND (Retired RN and Retired teacher) Mankato, Minnesota
• Ginny Schneider (Maine WTR Resource Center) South Portland, Maine
• John & Carrie Schuchardt (House of Peace, Ch. 45 Veterans for Peace) Ipswich, Massachusetts
• Alice Slater (Board, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space) New York, New York
• Ursula L. Slavick (Deering High teacher, former Portland Teachers’ Association president, Haiti School fundraiser), Portland, Maine
• William H. Slavick (Professor, retired Pax Christi Maine coordinator; 2006 Senate candidate; social justice, Palestinian rights activist), Portland, Maine
• Gar Smith (Author, editor, and cofounder of Environmentalists Against War) Berkeley, California
• Robert Shetterly (Americans Who Tell the Truth) Brooksville, Maine
• Dr. Jill Stein (Two-time Green Party presidential candidate) Lexington, Massachusetts
• Herschel Sternlieb (Peace activist) Washington DC
• Mary Beth Sullivan (Social worker) Brunswick, Maine
• David Swanson (Author & peace activist) Charlottesville, Virginia
• Pat Taub (Blogger, writer, teacher, peace & justice worker) Portland, Maine
• Ann Tiffany (Upstate Drone Action, anti-militarism activist) Syracuse, New York
• Dwayne Tomah (Passamoquoddy language keeper) Perry, Maine
• Jesse Ventura (Former Independent governor of Minnesota) Dellwood, Minnesota
• Karen Wainberg (PeaceWorks) Brunswick, Maine
• Morgana Warner-Evans (Workers' rights advocate & mental health professional) Portland, Maine
• Janet Weil (Activist, climate & militarism) Portland, Oregon
• Steven Welzer (Co-editor, Green Horizon Magazine) East Windsor, New Jersey
• Barbara West (Women's International League for Peace & Freedom) Bath, Maine
• Tom Whitney (Let Cuba Live) South Paris, Maine
• Russell Wray (Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats - COAST) Hancock, Maine
• Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright (Former US diplomat) Honolulu, Hawaii
• Kevin Zeese (Co-director Popular Resistance) Baltimore, Maryland   
• Violet Rose Zitola (former National Co-Chair, Green Party of the US) Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Johnny Zokovitch (Catholic peace and justice activist) St. Louis, Missouri

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