Shock Doctrine in Your State Yet?

Because I am on Maine State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin's email list, I received this cheerful message about how the ship is going down and it's all the fault of the pension "debt" burdening Maine. And, by the way, Happy Easter.

I was expecting something of the sort since reading that the U.S. had received a negative rating from Standard & Poor on treasury bonds. Shock doctrine, as you may recall, is Naomi Klein's thesis that the Forces of Greed will jump on a crisis and use the opportunity to line their own pockets at the expense of the people because it's an "emergency."

The real emergency in our state is the failure to tax the rich, to make corporations pay their fair share of taxes, plus shortfalls in federal funds due to the steady drain of Congress spending and borrowing to finance outrageously expensive wars abroad.

The lies being promoted here by Poliquin are to be expected from someone who forgot to change out of his Wall St. dress shoes to attend a public forum at the Skowhegan Community Center when he was running in the Republican primary for governor last year. I am sharing them with you because these same lies are parroted constantly by Fox "News" and other right wing media outlets, and your neighbors are listening. Arm yourself with the facts and look for opportunities to have a conversation about the REAL cause of our fiscal woes.

Water carriers for the Forces of Greed are always going to make misleading arguments. Glaring in this message: that the LePage budget would help solvency of the state's public employee pension funds. In fact, the raids on state employee and educator pension funds are intended to reduce the state's contribution, not shore up the funds. Also that "everyone" will have to suffer to bring budgets into the black. Everyone except Bank of America, Exxon, and the wealthy of Maine who will get to keep an additional $1 million before having to pay any estate tax if LePage and Poliquin's budget passes.

Also, Poliquin is being disingenuous when he claims Maine can't solve the problem like Washington does by printing more money (true about the fed, see a hilarious grim video explaining it here). Maine passed a law requiring the pension fund to be in a certain state of solvency by a certain deadline, and it can pass a law to remove the artificial deadline, too. It can IF it chooses to take a path toward true fiscal health, rather than scaring people into stampeding to the right while slashing and cutting essential programs for the neediest among us along the way.

Here's the email from Poliquin. See if you can spot the conflict of interest as reader Jon Olsen did:

SHOT ACROSS OUR FISCAL BOW

On Monday, global investors delivered what Washington politicians have been unable, or unwilling, to deliver -- seriousness about our surging national debt.

Standard & Poor's, the prominent rating agency, surprised the financial world with its new credit assessment of U.S. Treasury bonds: the previous AAA "stable outlook" was dropped to a "negative outlook."  A negative outlook is not a credit downgrade, but it can lead to one if our federal government's financial situation doesn't improve.  A downgrade would likely cost taxpayers higher interest payments on Treasury bonds sold to raise money to fund government spending.  Investors typically demand a higher interest rate return for buying a lower-credit, higher-risk bond.

There's no free lunch. There's always a day of fiscal reckoning.

Washington has been spending taxpayer dollars at breakneck speed.  Our highly-regulated, highly-taxed domestic economy (vs. other industrialized countries) cannot generate the tax revenues needed to pay for this spending binge.  So, to pay the bills, Washington has racked up a $14 trillion tab -- $14 TRILLION!

To make matters worse, the feds have no plan to pay off the debt. They recklessly print more dollars to pay the interest and principal on the borrowed money (the U.S. Treasury bonds).  This rapid expansion of the supply of money cheapens the value of the dollar, and ultimately leads to inflation - the cruelest tax paid by everyone to purchase everyday needs.

Standard & Poor's critical eye toward the creditworthiness of the federal government pleads for fiscal sanity.  Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), who heads the Congressional Budget Committee, has offered a credible path to retire roughly $6 trillion of debt over the next decade.  Because the fiscal can has been kicked down the street for so long, the solution will be very painful.  Everyone will suffer for the past fiscal mismanagement: retirees depending on Social Security; seniors counting on Medicare; the most disadvantaged needing Medicaid; students hoping for a college loan; businesses looking to grow and hire more workers.  However, as we've seen for many years, not addressing our stifling national debt today means confronting an even bigger problem tomorrow.

What can Maine learn from Washington's mistakes?

First, our state government cannot live beyond its means without consequence.  Second, telling the unvarnished truth about our serious fiscal problems helps to solve them.  And, third, not looking at the next election keeps our priorities straight.

The Maine Legislature is now debating Governor LePage's proposed biennial budget.  It includes fair and reasonable reforms to address the $4.3 billion pension debt to pay the retirement benefits for teachers and state employees.  If adopted, these changes will reduce the debt and spiking annual payments (an updated $409 million this next fiscal year) by more than 50%.  This, in turn, will allow state government to live within its means and adequately fund core services like public education and road repair.

There's no silver bullet to save us from the $4.3 billion pension debt.  Unlike Washington, by law Maine must balance its state budget each year.  And, Augusta can't print money for those tempted to do so.

It's now in the hands of the Legislature.

The Legislature will likely vote on the Governor's proposed budget, with or without adjustments, by early June.  Let's hope everyone in state government has the good judgment and discipline to point this ship in a more fiscally prudent direction.  Maine is a small state.  It doesn't take much to change course.

Now, close your eyes and imagine a state government with its long-term fiscal house in order.  A Maine that spends only what it takes in and pays its bills on time, including the $4.3 billion pension debt.  One that borrows less and balances its books without gimmicks.  One of those handful of states that spends less, taxes less, and regulates less.  A fiscally stable Maine that attracts fiscally responsible entrepreneurs who create jobs for our young workers. A place where quality of life includes a healthy paycheck.

 

Thank you and Happy Easter!

Bruce L. Poliquin

Maine State Treasurer

 

(Bruce Poliquin's comments are as State Treasurer, and not as a trustee of the Maine Public Employees Retirement System)

The Right to Listen

Who knew the 1st amendment protected our right to listen as well as to speak? Makes sense, I just never thought about it that way before.

In that spirit here's a video by Art Mayers of a selection of speakers and performers at Tuesday's rally about the Maine Labor Mural's day in federal court, followed by the text of my remarks at the rally.


MAINE MURAL RALLY SPEECH 4/19/11 Bangor
by Lisa Savage, CODEPINK Maine Local Coordinator

Information control is where the real battle for hearts and minds is being fought in the 21st century.

History is a particular kind of information, often highly contested. What do you mean when you say history? Is it just what's written down, or documented, somehow? Does it stretch back into the prehistoric, before writing? Before painting?

And especially: how do you know about it?

How DO we know that there was child labor in the mills in Maine? That there have been strikes in which labor prevailed, and in which labor was crushed?

Partly because of documents like the mural. Hooray for artist Judy Taylor! You did your homework! I'm sure you did not want to become a target and a cause celebre, however, we are especially grateful that you worked so hard, and made the mural both an elegant, dignified painting and, at the same time, an accurate historical document.

When I see the mural in my mind next to other art in state buildings, I see that the mass of people in the mural are as one in contrast to the highly individual portraits of one person, usually a rich, white, male employer.

And though the mural's palette is somber, the people do not look downtrodden. Their posture lends them dignity. And there are many of them.

If they stopped cooperating, who knows what might happen?

Threatening indeed. Best not have art around that might give them ideas. Or boost their morale by nourishing their souls.

Maine's labor mural is emblematic of the attacks globally on working people, their pension funds, working conditions, and ability to live. It's a thread running through the whole world now – government by kleptocracy, and the little people pay.

It cries out to be banned, because it is the history of the people. As has been said, the victors write the history books. Capitalism and its exploits intends to win. Books like Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States were written as correctives, because every history textbook that a teacher picked up was full of wars, glorious wars, with the United States military and the corporations it supports ever victorious. Who told about the times when regular laboring people triumphed?

What if the governor suddenly decided to take down the statue of Samantha Smith, the young anti-nuclear activist who died in a plane crash? She helped thaw the Cold War, some would say. And I have a question for the governor: was Samantha an employee or an employer?

We already know where censorship leads: people with Magic markers going through all the library books. Computer bots that search out banned memes. Surveillance. Suppressed news. Thought control.

The US has thought control prisons now. They're in the midwest and they're called Communication Management Units and Muslims get sent there. In order to balance out the appearance of racial profiling against Arabs, animal rights and environmental justice prisoners also get put in CMUs. Where they aren't allowed contact even with their families. Kind of like Bradley Manning in the Quantico brig for hundreds of days, in solitary confinement.

So by chance the Maine labor mural has assumed symbolic proportions far beyond its intentions. Being real and therefore nourishing, the mural is a threat because it communicates about history. The history of the people.

And information control is where the real battle for hearts and minds is being fought in the 21st century.

Labor Mural Wants to Be Free

3 of 11 panels from the mural: The 1937 Strike Scenes from an unsuccessful strike attempt to create better conditions for women workers. Frances Perkins FDR's  Labor Secretary, and untiring labor activist, a Maine Labor icon. Rosie the Riveter Maine's version of WWII women workers participated as ship-builders.

Control of information is where the battle for hearts and minds is being waged in the 21st century. That's why Bradley Manning is being tortured for allegedly leaking the Collateral Murder video and other raw truths about military occupation. That's why Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is a wanted man for distributing the information. And that's why Maine's governor took down the mural depicting labor history created by Judy Taylor for the lobby of the Department of Labor.

The Maine labor mural had a hearing in Federal District Court in Bangor today on a charge that the governor violated citizens' First Amendment right of access to the mural by removing it.

Appropriately enough, the court proceedings were open to the public, and we were treated to an entertaining show. Judge Woodcock was clearly enjoying himself, and he hinted broadly that it would not have been unwelcome if either the plaintiffs or the defendant had filed for discovery in order to produce the mural in the courtroom. The judge rightly noted that few present had actually ever seen it, and that they are unlikely to now that it is believed to be stored “in a broom closet.”

The case seems to hinge on whether or not the mural's removal can be considered “government speech” which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld 1st amendment rights for; as a legal concept, the judge noted, government speech is pretty freshly minted. Would a person viewing the mural reasonably think that it contained a message from his or her government? Or just a personal vision expressed by the artist? He speculated that portraits of the founders of giant paper companies and ship builders may be planned to replace the mural, according to the governor.

The plaintiffs argue it is the latter, while the state argued through its lawyers that it had spoken (perhaps less than eloquently) when the mural was removed last month under cover of darkness.

Despite expressing the reluctance of federal courts to interfere in state business, the judge had prepared  some interesting questions for both sides. To the plaintiffs: Doesn't each successive administration remove art from the walls of public buildings, and put up other art, and doesn't this constitute a benefit of democratic governance, wherein the people are supposed to have spoken at the ballot box that brought the administration to office?

Counsel for the plaintiffs: If the art had been removed because the color scheme was displeasing, yes. If it is removed because the content is deemed unwelcome – as the governor clearly stated in the verbal pissing match that led up to the mural's removal – then that is a violation of the right, not just to speak, but to listen.

Judge Woodcock then asked counsel for the defendant: Suppose the governor were to enter the state library, find a number of books there on the history of labor objectionable, and burn them? Would that be permissible?

In a room full of oldsters, it's pretty clear what that hypothetical referred to.

The judge promised to render a decision quickly, but he's known for writing long opinions – so don't hold your breath. Other avenues remain, including a pending demand from the U.S. Dept. of Labor for a refund of its $60k contribution via grant whose terms have now been violated; the fact that the state museum actually has responsibility for the art in state buildings; and the breach of contract with the artist, who is entitled to be consulted in the event of her work's removal, and wasn't.

At a rally that followed the hearing, in Peirce Park under a monumental statue of lumberjacks at work, artist Nathasha Mayers spoke dressed as a truck with Maine open for  business  exploitation painted on the side. Artist Rob Shetterly said the mural deserved to be seen because it showed the truth  about labor history in Maine. And several speakers represented labor, none more eloquently than retired RN Kathy Day. The nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center have been struggling for a contract that guarantees adequate staffing levels, and Kathy clearly explained how society as a whole often benefits from workers' struggles.

Kathy Day, Food AND Medicine, Bangor, April 19, 2011

Not enough nurses to provide adequate care? Not enough air traffic controllers to spell each other through the wee hours? Weak protection for child laborers? Eventually, somebody's going to get hurt.

Dungeons & Dumb-dumbs

Dirty Tricks Department: Maine's (doubly) historic labor mural was removed over the weekend. The price tag for much maligned state workers to do so is undisclosed. Where the mural will end up, nobody knows. The City of Portland is backing away from enabling the sneaky removal, and may not offer it a home in City Hall after all.

The same week Gov. LePage announced he would remove the mural from a lobby in the Dept. of Labor because it is one-sided, he also announced that he would tax the rich in Maine, but he can't find any.

He said this once in class (see John Harlow's video here), and then repeated it for a newspaper reporter covering his appearance at University of Maine's Farmington campus.

Meanwhile the history buffs among us watch censorship rear its ugly head right out in the open. In the corptocracy, it usually works invisibly by shutting out much that is possible. The closing down, boarding up, tearing down style reminds us more of earlier eras of governments that worked on behalf of business, not for the people. Governments that controlled a restive underclass by whipping up hatred for scapegoats. As we now see in the many actions including preemptive prosecution against Muslims simply for being Muslim.

They and Bradley Manning are held incommunicado for immense stretches of time in a young human life, without being suspected or accused of any violent crime. They are in jail for what they believe, and because they are in one of two special prisons called Communication Management Units (article here about CMUs on Democracy Now!), there are twelve year-olds haven't spoken to their father in four years. Special prisons for ideological crimes looked too racist, so the prisons now receive environmental activists and animal rights activists to balance out the demographic of thought criminals.

Meanwhile, Governor LePage has special prisons in mind for Maine's indigent and homeless: “If it were up to me, I’d find a dungeon very cheaply and house them all.” Full report here on The Maine Campus.

Maine Hogwash

This isn't the first time a mural about the people who work has caused trouble. Rockefeller Center tore down the mural that Diego Rivera and others had created in NYC in 1933 because the artist declined to obliterate Lenin's face. Ben Shahn organized the artists to oppose this. I wonder what he would say about the plan to remove the murals from the Labor Dept.

Maine's beautiful Dept of Labor mural by artist Judy Taylor was on the Daily Show, Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, in the NYT and the Christian Science Monitor  even before today's rallies (there were two). An educational news conference in front of the mural by the Union of Maine Visual Artists and other artists and art supporters was held at the Dept. of Labor today at noon, while a slew of msm and indy media outlets carried stories about the murals.

Of interest also: there may be a state law saying that the governor doesn't have responsibility for the works of art on display in Maine public buildings. Instead, the State Museum does. I wonder if that's true.

Meanwhile, the whole hogwash continued to flow.

Maine's governor stated not just once but twice yesterday that he would tax the rich -- if only he could find any.

Bangor Daily News coverage here. Several online comments suggested he start looking in Bar Harbor -- where the Obama family went on vacation last summer.

Then there were posts like this one: “I cannot imagine being a company working with the Department of Labor to solve a labor relations issue and being called to a meeting in the Cesar Chavez” room."

Kind of like how people of color feel when they're in a public building and all the portraits are white?

This reminds me of a favorite quote from Cesar Chavez. Asked how he organized he said, first I talk to a person, and then I talk to another person. The questioner said, I know, but how do you organize people. And Chavez said, I told you.

✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ ✌ 

My historical novel about working people in Maine is available to read on Kindle.

LePage aka whole hog at U Maine

The former mayor of Waterville, now Maine's Tea Party governor, spoke to Rep. Tom Saviello's class at UMaine Farmington tonight following the Support for Educators rally organized by students. Some from the rally audited the class, hearing the same old tired talking points rehashed for a fresh faced audience asking hard questions e.g. my dad worked for the state for 25 years and now he is getting screwed on his pension; my parents are getting taxed on their pension and consequently want to move to New Hampshire; if your pension raids cause workers to postpone retiring, where are the jobs going to come from for the recent graduates?

Suddenly the auditorium went dark. The light switch had been temporarily commandeered by pixies.

Instructor angrily admonishes audience that this class is for his students only, and they will be the only ones asking questions.

After being told by whole hog that the "only" path forward was to gut pension fund and increase the estate tax (oops, I think he meant increase the exemption for the estate tax -- from its present level of $1 million to $2 million)  a heckler burst out:

"Tax the rich."

Whole Hog: "I would love to tax the rich, if we had any in Maine." (Crowd laughs)

Heckler: "So it's people from out of state who put you in office, sir? It's rich people from out of state who funded your campaign then, and put you in office -- is that what you're saying? Not Mainers?"

Campus police who have mistakenly let hecklers enter now move forward to eject them. Governor's aides scrambling also.

Heckler: "I'll go. That's the solution. Bring our war $$ home. And tax the rich!"

Campus police were unable to ascertain the identity of the light switch pixies or the hecklers, and unable to follow them to their cars.

Mural of Maine labor history (detail).

Tomorrow, noon in Augusta: rally to save Maine's history of labor murals. Rachel Maddow covering the mural flap! Apparently she terms whole hog the most ultra conservative governor in the country.

read my butt

Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote speaker the Rev. Effie McClain and Gov. Paul LePage dance during an event in Waterville on Monday. Attendees at the event honoring the civil rights leader joined in a dance with music from the Colby African Drummers group. 

I believe this explains why U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325calls for women to be present in large numbers at the peace negotiating tables.

Amy Calder reporting in the Waterville Morning Sentinel Jan 18:

The Rev. Effie McClain, guest speaker at the event, walked into the audience and enlisted LePage to dance with her when the Colby College African Drumming Ensemble started dancing, encouraging audience participation.

It was a pivotal moment in the festivities. McClain, who is black, and LePage, hugged after they danced, and the audience applauded.

Here's a letter I printed out on bright pink paper and sent to the Blaine House. I hope someone reads it to him.

1/20/11
Dear Governor,

I am writing to express strong concern at your language on Jan. 14. I saw a video of your response to a reporter asking about the NAACP request for support. From your words and expression I got the impression you were showing off for some buddies.

As the chief executive of our state, you can do better.

Inflaming old prejudices is a dangerous way to get a few laughs. Maine has a history of white supremacist groups like the Klu Klux Klan, who operated publicly in Milo, Portland and other towns. They targeted many groups but primarily they railed against the threat posed by immigrants, French speaking, who were also reviled for being Catholic.

Right now the state of Maine is in big trouble economically, as usual. Luckily, we're used to it. It would be nice to think that Mainers will continue pulling together in the face of adversity. The old fashioned spirit that makes us stop for a car stuck in the snow. Like we're all in this together no matter how hard it gets sometimes.

Please retract your deliberate on-camera insult to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a highly respected organization, and one that represents civility, education, and progress. I imagine that what you meant to say was something like, “I don't have to do what the NAACP wants me to do. Who's going to make me?” All true, but your choice of words was extremely crude, and sets a bad example for the children of Maine, who look up to you.

Only your conscience and dignity are going to make you apologize. Please think about my request. Thank you.
Lisa Savage
CODEPINK Maine Local Coordinator