Democrats Applaud War As Jared Golden Ducks The Public At Maine Convention

Outside the Democratic Party Convention May 31, 2024 in Bangor, Maine  Photo credit: Shane Leonard

Maine's 2nd District representative to Congress used to be Bruce Poliquin, a Republican who became infamous for avoiding reporters by ducking into the women's bathroom. Our current rep, Democrat Jared Golden, is just as determined to avoid the public. Perhaps tipped off that there were plans to disrupt his speech at the Maine Democratic Party convention last Thursday, he mailed it in. (This is consistent with plans to make the DNC's national convention virtual as the politicians who speak for our corporate overlords rightly fear disruptions as Israel's genocide in Gaza grinds on with full support of the Biden administration.)

Photo outside the convention venue, credit: Shane Leonard

Here's an eyewitness account of how it went down in Maine:

Last night at the Democratic Convention, which really was a complete waste of time and just left me feeling even more outraged . . . I'm not sure that's possible.   You may already have heard, there was a great "outside" presence, I imagine perhaps 100 folks wouldn't be exaggerating, but I was "inside" looking out the windows.  It's hard to tell from the chaos at the end how many "insiders" there were. 

What's significant especially to your column this morning was the nauseating, self-congratulatory, "patriotic" . . . Matt Dunlop actually asked God to "Bless our Troops" . . . politic/speech we had to sit through waiting for the moment Golden would speak . . . next to last so, it was a heck of a long wait.  Oh, don't let me forget, the biggest cheers came when Emily Cain announced that "Dems don't need a pep talk . . . Trump was convicted on all 32 counts" . . . Rousing cheers, whoops, claps, etc.  Yuk!  As if it flippin matters.  Instead of Trump (temporarily), they've got a war criminal as president with a cabinet of war criminals that the Dems are all going to work very, very hard to re-elect, like good little Puppetpeople!

Back to Golden.  When it was time to announce him . . . and all of us who had been waiting with great anticipation with our snuck-in props . . . we were told, "Unfortunately, Congressman Golden has a family emergency and so won't be with us tonight,  but we have a video".  Baloney!!!  Actually, as I found out later, Golden had been there all evening . . . he was actually probably spitting distance from me but I didn't know it.  Unbelievably, he snuck out just before his speech.  There are many things "monumental" about him . . . I won't list them, you know them . . . but at the top of the list is COWARDICE.  And you know the Dems were all in on this because they had the flippin video. 

I don't know what was on the video, because following the "announcement"  all hell broke loose.  We made lots of noise, people had whistles, strips of paper were being thrown.  Nobody was arrested inside, just escorted out . . . and here I had brought my bail money!  I was/am so angry.  You know Lisa, I am committed to nonviolence and have been for a long, long time.  But I am so angry I feel like exploding . . . not a good place for nonviolent resistance.  A minor annoyance is that I can't unregister as a Dem for 3 months since I only registered as one a couple of weeks ago, and that's a pretty hefty sacrifice.

Here's video of the disruption inside the convention. Because we have to be our own media! The screengrab below shows multiple people walking out and the sound track records them shouting "Free free Palestine" as the chair calls repeatedly for order and tries to start the video.

https://youtu.be/M7TZ9OrZQ88

Ponder this: not a single corporate media source that I saw reporting on the convention made any mention of this walkout by Maine Democrats appalled by Golden's support for Israel's genocide.

Photo credit: Dawn Starr

It's almost like U.S. corporate media are in on the project of stifling dissent, with their role of ignoring it when it occurs.

Outside sentiment toward the Democratic Party nominee for president, photo credit Tim Paradis

I am again reminded that a college professor here told me the reason her students cared about Palestine is that they mostly get their news from watching Russell Brand and Lee Camp.

Meanwhile an elderly narrative manager reposts New York Times articles to a local peace listserv which, if disputed, are backed up with articles from wikipedia -- both outlets under firm corporate control for the last several decades.

Expect even more disruptions, and creative dissent -- and even less reporting from those complicit in the destruction of Palestine.

Photo credit: Tim Paradis

The Grieving, And The Resistance

Healthcare Workers for Palestine created a space for grieving yesterday in Portland, Maine, and I felt grateful. 

If the angle of my photo induces vertigo, it may be because I had been carrying little Hind Rajab with me for days. She is the 6 year old whose historic phone call from a car where her family had been shot dead by Israelis was heard round the world. It didn't save her, though. Because then Israel used U.S. shells and fired on the ambulance rushing to where she was trapped with the corpses of those whom she loved. Subsequent rescuers didn't reach the car until Hind's body had been decomposing for days. Yup, the Israelis killed her, too.

Here's how imperial narrative managers are spinning this child's hell on Earth:

"Found dead." Got it.

So, we grieve and we resist. And we welcome news of resistance in the belly of the beast. 

https://twitter.com/palyouthmvmt/status/1756437134066561439

What they're chanting at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC: "There is only one solution / Intifada revolution!"

Are we gearing up to a general strike that will shut down the war machine? Will I live to see it?

Banality of evil department

Here's the response I got from the man who allegedly "represents" me, objecting to the humanitarian disaster resulting from suspension of funding to UNRWA:

Meanwhile, as Jared Golden goes about his well-renumerated imperial service, there are three families who lost loved ones in an attack that has been lied about from the get-go. Was it in Jordan, whose government's hosting of U.S. imperial outposts is a vulnerability with its own people -- many of whom are Nakba refugees? Or was it, as Jordan claimed, just over the border in Syria, where U.S. military presence is an illegal occupation?

This blog I'm reading lately points out the truth hiding behind the bureaucratic lies: the Pentagon killed these Black soldiers by leaving them undefended on an assignment surrounded by hostile forces. 

Why am I siding with the soldiers? Because I think the poverty draft is intense, the pro-military propaganda is immense (cf. Super Bowl today), and two of them -- Breonna Moffett and Kennedy Sanders -- were quite young. They will never get the opportunity to learn more than they knew and change their minds. I wonder if they ever learned the term "Nakba" in school?

Yes, I'm grieving for them, too. I'm grieving for all the casualties of the war on Palestine -- including the truth.

U.S. Congress, You Can't Hide! We Charge You With Genocide

Photo credit for Golden's office pics: Lawrence Reichard

But try to hide our "representatives" will. My representative Jared Golden was not present in his Bangor office this week when eight people were arrested trying to deliver a letter demanding he support a ceasefire in Gaza. And plans for a second group to try again were thwarted when staff closed his Bangor office early on Friday. 

Photo credit: DSA Maine

Maine's 1st district rep Chellie Pingree was not present in her Portland office last week when Jewish organizers with If Not Now turned out 200 or so. A handful of them were led out in zip ties after office staff refused to accept the letter they were trying to deliver.

I consider several people who took part in these actions friends, and I got to speak with one of them about his experiences in Bangor. Rob Shetterly, who has worked in refugee camps in the West Bank on trips sponsored by Veterans for Peace, reported:  "We wanted to do our little piece of the international actions to support the Palestinians and stop the genocidal actions continuing in Gaza. And to encourage other people to take a stand." 

The group failed to disperse after being blocked from delivering a message that said in part:

As residents of Maine, we are here today to demand that Rep. Jared Golden and all of Maine’s congressional delegation support House Resolution 786, a congressional resolution that calls for an immediate de-escalation and cease-fire in Israel and occupied Palestine.

Calling for a cease-fire is not support for Hamas, and criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitism. As Mainers, we can no longer stand by and idly bear witness to this slaughter of innocent civilians. 

We would no more bomb our beloved brothers and sisters in Palestine for the actions of some than we would bomb our beloved friends and neighbors in Lewiston for the actions of one man. Enough. Stop the killing. Stop it now.

Shetterly told me, 

Just before we went in we got the news about the censuring of Rashida Tlaib which affected me more strongly than Golden’s support for bombing. To pick out a Palestinian person in our Congress who's simply speaking out on behalf of humanity reminds me of collective dehumanization like the Nazis did to Jews or like White Americans do to Black Africans or Native people.

A person in a position power has a particular responsibility to know the history of the things they talk about. A whole series of genocidal actions are taking place on the basis of wildly false information. There’s a history here of ethnic cleansing and violent military occupation that was inevitably going to lead to resistance.

He said that he plans to reach out to Tlaib to see if she will agree to be painted as he would like to add her portrait to his ongoing series Americans Who Tell The Truth. 

Shetterly and the others were released on their own recognizance after paying a bail bondsman $60 each to process their paperwork. If they did not pay, they were told that they would be jailed over the four day weekend. Their arraignment date is January 10.

I'm old enough to remember when our elected representatives in Maine at least pretended to hear from constituents. They held town halls and would also schedule time for constituents to call on them when they were back in district. 

These days the only way to get their attention seems to be civil disobedience. Thus more than 100 congressional staffers walked off the job last week to protest U.S. support for genocide in Gaza. Many of them are undoubtedly the young voices we hear when we call to express our opinions. I'm always courteous because the staffers are in a tough place and possibly on the verge of their own awakening from the delusion of American exceptionalism. One young woman in Sen. Angus King's office sounded on the verge of tears as she responded to my call, "I hear you, Lisa."

Students walked out of classes and then blocked the front entrance of the New York Public Library on Thursday Nov 9.

In related actions last week, writers occupied the New York Times demanding truthful reporting on Palestine following writer Jazmine Hughes being forced to resign after signing a letter of support for Palestine; and both Brandeis and Columbia suspended the group Students for Justice in Palestine. Columbia also suspended Jewish Voice for Peace.

Brown University in Providence had student protesters arrested.

Bottom line: the people aren't having it, especially young Jewish people. And you cannot hide from an idea whose time has come.

Get Mad, Get Sad -- Then, Get Active!

A short post to share a couple of items that made me mad, sad, and motivated to act this week. 

Above, we see the Israeli delegation to the United Nations pinning on yellow stars meant to evoke those forced on Jews in Germany and Ukraine by Nazis during the Holocaust. They explained that they would be wearing the stars until such time as the UN condemns Hamas. Israel went on after this bit of victim theatrics (which many actual Holocaust survivors have said they were appalled by) to kill 9,000 people in a few days -- a large portion of them children -- by incessant bombing of the concentration camp that is Gaza. 

https://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?531487-1/white-house-daily-briefing

Here we see White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre attempting to draw a parallel between pro-Palestine protesters on college campuses today and the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 where marchers literally chanted "Jews will not replace us" on the campus of the University of Virginia. The question that prompted this unforced error occurs at 38:05 in the video.

You can read her statement as text here on the WH press site. 

She was not convincing, possibly because she is so full of shit that she felt the need to use the word "very" 58 times in her briefing.

Get active!

Many people are headed to Washington DC November 4 to demand a ceasefire for Gaza. Details here. If traveling from Maine, bus details are here.

Help activists demand that Rep. Jared Golden sign on to a congressional letter calling for an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Message me for details on how to connect with this action on Wednesday November 9 in Bangor. Or just ring congressional phones off the hook: (202) 225-3121.

Print and radio ads will run next week reaching audiences around Acadia.

Join us in Portland on Monday November 6 to protest plans to build a rocket launch site near Acadia National Park. We'll be in front of the Holiday Inn on Spring Street from 11:30am-12:30pm as the Maine Space Conference breaks for lunch. If this seems a bit off topic, consider that the Pentagon and SpaceX launch multiple times each week in order to fill low space orbit with small communications satellites that are of critical importance to conducting wars in the 21st century. And that is exactly what you can expect from any launch site built in Maine.

Rep. Jared Golden Steps In An Enormous Pile Of BS On Twitter

My representative, Jared Golden of Maine's 2nd District (we only have two) is pictured here with two of the other three members of our congressional delegation plus their party leader President Biden. (Senator Susan Collins is missing.) Collectively these people have sent $160 Billion to Ukraine.

Here's what he posted to Twitter yesterday, getting thoroughly roasted by his own party. It appears to be in response to this follow-the-money article: "Golden's Blue Dogs Get Money From Sallie Mae After Opposing Student Debt Relief" by Dan Neumann in the Maine Beacon.

The ratio on this (negative comments vs. supportive comments) was enormous. It sounds ignorant enough for me to believe that Golden actually wrote it himself, but such tasks are usually done by comms staffers.

Let's break down his arguments.

The phrase "radical leftist elites" caused equal parts of hilarity and pushback. In Maine??? Super old, super white, and, in the district he represents, super conservative demographics. Some comments waded into the oxymoron of "leftist elites" but I'm going to give Golden a pass on this one because of years of corporate media claiming that people like him and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-CD1) are "leftist" have deliberately confused many about the meaning of that word.

I am an actual leftist, and I don't believe in elites. Mostly because this is the kind of garbage government they produce.

Next point: "silence and destroy anyone who disagrees with your views and goals." This one is highly ironic coming from a person who takes big money from tech giants like Apple who are in the business of silencing dissenting speech at the behest of the federal government. But it's a dog whistle for his largely MAGA electorate.

He stands by his vote against a paltry $10k student loan forgiveness bill. It's not unusual for him to vote against the Democratic herd (unless it's on wars or military, that is). Maybe Golden plans to drop the D in 2024 and run as an "independent" since that's worked so well for Senator Angus King?

Here's where the comments really went nuts: "They [college loan recipients] were privileged to have the opportunity and many of them left college well-situated to make six figures for life."

 Bre Kidman, an attorney who doesn't live in Golden's district:

https://twitter.com/beekayesq/status/1692679705848111520

Okay here's where he really goes off the rails: "The Twitterati can keep bemoaning their privileged status and demanding handouts all they want..."

Some are opining that an intern wrote this but use of the absurd and laughable term Twitterati implies to me that an older conservative author was responsible. Also who "bemoans" their "privileged status"? 

The bemoaning I hear in Maine is from people living on the streets who've got nothing to eat, or are about to get evicted because their rent has skyrocketed, or can't believe their insanely high grocery bills. Or can't afford medical care they desperately need. (Golden abandoned his first campaign promise to support Medicare for All after taking money from the health "care" industry plus tech firms looking to expand into health "care".)

"...but as far as I'm concerned if they want free money for college, they can join the Marines like I, and so many others, have done in the past and many more will in the future." 

Now we arrive at the real point of this ungrammatical post (maybe he did write it himself): making college debt prohibitively high, with no escape route via bankruptcy, is a strategy to boost military recruitment. 

Was Golden supposed to say the quiet part out loud?

https://twitter.com/cokes311/status/1692610578139803660

In any case it's been an abject failure because currently only 9% of those in the right age band will even consider military enlistment, and the Pentagon is struggling to find enough recruits. Their own research found the reasons that so few want to follow Golden's example: they don't want to die or be injured, they don't want to leave friends and family, and they don't want to put their lives on hold (in that order).

Maybe the decades of U.S. wars where the only winners are the military-industrial complex are a factor? Either way, literate young people who qualify want nothing to do with the U.S. military.

Also, much of the pushback on this notion came from disabled Mainers.

https://twitter.com/tahjhebert/status/1692596498851131644

Meanwhile, over on reddit, even his fellow veterans weren't buying it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comments/15uto1q/jared_golden_twitter_statement_about_radical/

Finally, there was a lot of pushback on Golden voting to forgive PPP loans that corporate entities like (checks notes) the biggest law firm in Maine took out in 2020.

All in all, beating up on a generation shackled by predatory loans in an economy where most can't make a living wage, afford homeownership, or start a family is bully behavior. Way to punch down, forgetting (?) that you represent one of the lowest income areas in the nation. 

But not to worry, he's fundraising in the rich part of Maine.

https://twitter.com/CollinsWatch/status/1692646506103259203

What I Really Care About: The War On The Poor

"They got money for wars but can't feed the poor." Tupac Shakur, 1993 (photo source: Huffington Post)

When I started this blog what I really cared about were the USA's many, many wars against the poor both within and without our wealthy nation.

Children were and are being burned up in their beds at night by drones, flying killer robots controlled by soldiers in air conditioned trailers somewhere thousands of miles away. Also by conventional bombs dropped from airplanes with humans in them. Civilian casualties are pretty much ignored once they've been assigned marginal status as "collateral damage" in the U.S. wars for empire. This goes on with a ka-ching of the cash registers whether the person in the White House had a D or an R after their name.

The children killed and maimed are nearly always brown, and the soldiers and their commanders are usually white.

In the years since I started my blog, cell phones and body cameras have elevated the traditional policing practice of beating and even murdering black and brown bodied people who are unarmed and pose no threat. Also the traditional practice of not holding police officers accountable for their racist violence. So that is also a grave injustice that holds my attention.

Meanwhile, through my activist community, I've learned a lot more than I knew about the apartheid state of Israel and their occupation of Palestine. I grew up on Zionist propaganda in the corporate media and had lots of Jewish friends whose families subscribed to what filmmaker Eric Axelman calls "Israelism."

Now comes Rep. Ilhan Omar pointing out that lobbyists like AIPAC exert enormous influence on Congress by means of funneling money to our so-called representatives.

She has been vilified for stating this obvious truth. As organizer Philip Savage observed, "Progressive Democrats say Listen to women of color, but as soon as Ilhan Omar said something true they turned on her."

So I wrote to my new white man in Congress, Rep. Jared Golden, asking him not to join the "leadership" of the Democratic party in censuring Omar. What I got back was a boilerplate response that indicates Golden is completely ignorant of facts on the ground in Palestine, and suggests that he is already in AIPAC's hip pocket. (Because AIPAC's minions work fast and are extremely good at the wrong thing that they do.)

March 8, 2019

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for contacting me about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  It is my honor to serve as your representative in Congress, and I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

Israelis and Palestinians have suffered from heartbreaking violence for far too long. I believe that a negotiated two-state solution would bring security for both Israelis and Palestinians, and that it is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state.

The United States has had some success in brokering peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors. In 1978, we led the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. In 1994, we led the Wadi Araba Treaty between Israel and Jordan. I believe that the United States should build on this strong record and work to establish peace negotiations once again.

I respect the diversity of views that Americans hold on this conflict. As we grapple with this complex and painful issue, we must remain open to legitimate policy debates and reject all forms of bigotry.

Thank you again for reaching out to me on this important issue. I hope you will continue to inform me of the issues that matter to you.

Sincerely,

Jared F. Golden
Member of Congress

Golden was supposed to be our saver because he replaced Bruce Poliquin, a Wall St. lackey who was tremendously out of touch with his constituents in the poor half of Maine.

As a candidate, Golden was glorified as a veteran. That worried me, but some of my best friends are veterans who learned firsthand that war is hell and came home to honestly address their moral injuries.

He has now made his first voting blunder by opposing background checks on gun sales. This is entirely in touch with the 2nd district of Maine, full of hunters, doomsday preppers, and adults who grew up pretending to shoot people for fun.

So, the NRA -- a lobby so powerful it rivals AIPAC -- may or may not have already gotten to Golden. Time will tell.

In the meantime I will write back to Golden and strongly urge that he educate himself about the situation in Palestine, Israel, and the role of the U.S. in perpetuating problems there. For starters, recognize that the two-state solution is virtually impossible since the U.S. has permitted and supported the Balkanization of Palestine for the last several decades.

Source: International Middle East Media Center
"New Israeli government plans to annex 1/3 of West Bank by ‘legalizing’ illegal settlements" May 15, 2015

I know that I have already lost the interest of the scores of new readers I attracted by covering the mascot controversy in Skowhegan. But the two issues are actually not that different. 

Beneath the surface, both involve a dominant culture of white settlers stealing land and water resources, and herding the indigenous people into tightly confined spaces with limited civil rights. Also plenty of propaganda to characterize those targeted for genocide as undesirable, in many cases even less than human.

My next campaign will not involve demeaning stereotypes like mascots or even stopping the theft of Palestine from the Palestinians, an ongoing concern that would require my retirement to pursue in a meaningful way.

Design by Russell Wray

My next campaign will be close to home: the conversion of Bath Iron Works, which is owned by mega wealthy weapons manufacturer General Dynamics, to peaceful production. Pressuring a corporation is a whole lot different and more difficult than pressuring a small public entity like a school board to do the right thing. But it can be done, it has been done, and it will be done.

Someday I believe we will stop building weapons and start building sustainable energy solutions like solar and tidal power components.

Conversion will make us all safer. Because weapons don't make anyone safer. and because climate change is the biggest security threat facing human life on the planet today.

If you want to join me, consider taking the Natural Guard pledge and/or signing our petition about conversion of BIW.

Also consider an act of civil disobedience the next time a warship is "christened" in Bath, probably this spring. This kind of political advocacy is way more fun that attending school board meetings but the two have this in common: you meet the nicest people.

Stay tuned...