Vying To Be The Biggest Loudmouth Racist, Maine's Governor Fulfills Corporate Agenda

Coverage of Maine's loudmouth governor spouting racist epithets has traveled far and wide. Even the BBC had picked up the story of my governor's remarks earlier this week. 

In case you have been living under a rock this week, here is what he said -- on camera:

These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.

The governor is in his second term and will be term limited out of office at the end of it. His most recent remarks are offensive on so many levels that it's hard to know where to begin in responding. Early on, just after he became governor, he said that the NAACP could "kiss my butt" when a reporter asked why he had not responded to an invitation to an event his predecessors usually attended. 

Listing all the offensive things this man has said while in office would take a long time. I'm more interested in why he feels it is politically expedient to say such things or, more to the point, why those who put him in office in the first place find it expedient for him to play the role of a dumb bigot.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Koch Brothers are behind the scenes of his rise from mayor of a small, aging mill town to governor. Changing the sign at our border with New Hampshire to read "Maine -- Open For Business" early on
was a telling act signalling that corporate interests would be well-served by this administration. Access to mining rights, water rights and trampling on the ancestral fishing rights of the Penobscot peoples have all been vigorously pursued in his pro-corporate agenda. Dredging harbors and rivers to ship fossil fuels and nuclear equipped warships out, and bringing toxic construction debris for profitable landfills in are also among his administration's pet projects.

What does this have to do with flagrant racism? Very little. The flamboyant racism is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex (paraphrasing Frank Zappa here).

In both elections where Mainers found they would be governed by a man that most did not choose, the vote was split by a third party self-made millionaire named Eliot Cutler. Cutler's resume signals the presence of Chinese capital hungry for the resource colony that is the Maine seen through corporate eyes. (The rest of us see a tourist mecca once known as "Vacationland" whose trout and salmon are now unfit for human consumption.) Cutler dumped tons of money into online ad campaigning and peeled off enough liberal voters from the Democratic candidate to deliver two consecutive victories to the Tea Party.

When I compare our governor with the demagogue with bad hair whom the corporate press have anointed the front runner for the Republican Party nomination for president, I see similarities. Both are nakedly opportunistic politicians with track records of boorish, bullying behavior. Based on comparing their words with their actions, their convictions appear shallow. 

They are race-baiting because it serves their interests to pander to disaffected white working class and low income voters with no prospects for economic progress. In other words,  people in need of scapegoats on whom to blame their condition.

Hate language is not a new development, but its increasing momentum frightens this history major. Viewed along with the 21st century U.S. version of the Beer Hall Putsch, where angry white men with guns defy the federal government in Oregon and get away with it, it's downright terrifying. 

Social media is rife with observations that if the Oregon gang were native people like the Paiute that were run off the land to begin with, or Black Lives Matter activists, they'd already have been gunned down.  These white men will likely get a slap on the wrist eventually. Hitler served 9 months in prison for his role in the failed putsch, and went on to kill millions with the help of willing executioners fired up by his racist rhetoric. 

Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison. It is said that time for reflection led him to the conclusion that working within the system to take over Germany would be a more effective than armed rebellion. 

Maine Bring Our War $$ Home Speaker: "I Am 17 Years Old, And I Am The 99%!"

Young voices dominated the Marching Against Fiscal Madness: Fund Human Needs rally and news conference in Maine's State House Hall of Flags on March 20. Singer/Songwriter Morgana Warner Evans of West Bath, about to graduate from high school, serenaded Tea Party Governor LePage and a crowd of about 100 who joined in singing the chorus to her adaptation of the union anthem "Which Side Are You On?" The event was co-sponsored by Occupy Maine and the Bring Our War $$ Home campaign coalition.



High school senior Alaena Merrill also wowed the crowd, drawing sustained applause several times (full disclosure: I edited out much of it because my camera work got shaky during those intervals) with her remarks about what funding can do for public school programs, and what war spending does to school budgets.




College senior Nicole Moreau of CODEPINK Maine and Veterans for Peace delivered stunning testimony about the high cost of education and the astronomical levels of debt today's students are graduating with -- into a bleak landscape with few job prospects.



College student Curtis Cole captioned this photo I shared on his facebook page: "Pic of my speaking with members of the ruling class looking on."

His speech also drew cheers and prolonged applause -- though not from the governor (at left in blue shirt with hand on his mouth).

Stagnation: War Money and Maine Society

I’m here today on a simple mission: that mission is to tell all of you of the obsolete and deceitful nature of the 1%. You see, the 1% would like us to believe it is in our best interest to spend billions of dollars annually on a defense budget. They would like students to believe that it is in the student’s best interest to maintain funding occupation soldiers’ salaries; they want us to believe that we can ‘suffice’ without quality healthcare, education, civil servants, and decent infrastructure. Yet, most of all, they would like society at large to swallow the ultimate lie: that maintenance of the Imperialist Murder Machine, i.e. The Military Industrial Complex, is needed for our safety.

Such words are blasphemous to the truth. We, the 99%, need a military in the same way that hell needs more fire. No, we do not need to spend any amount, let along such obscene proportions, on war. Here in the Great State of Maine, the taxpayers are gouged of 1.3 billion dollars annually. This drain is directed towards the military defense budget. A budget which is so over bloated that our nation’s budget alone dwarfs that of the rest of the world’s-combined!

You see, the ‘Powers that be’ needs the young to believe that without an armed force breathing down their necks at all times society as we know it will collapse. Masterful propaganda has made our modern world one of such sharp distortions that even breaking away and glimpsing the truth is a daring feat.

To accomplish this they saturate the media with horrifying claims. Claims of mass murder, genocide, and land hungry entities annexing their neighbors accompany images of tactical maps indicating the supposed threat to American safety. Without a strong police state, the warmongers argue, society will inevitably be taken over by foreigners, communists, Queers, Muslims or whatever new scapegoat the liberal/ conservative alliance dreams up; dreaming being the primary method of thinking and data collecting for the elites who create such fantasies.

Fantasies such as this condemn people to live in poverty and indignation. Mainers must fight against these draconian measures otherwise nearly no one would have access to healthcare (as the sum would readily be reallocated to the wars). As Many as 1 in 5 Mainers² live in rural areas, and are unable to even locate a healthcare provider; let alone pay the exorbitant post-procedure costs. With Maine Care being slashed left and right, it is becoming increasingly impossible to afford vital treatment. Yet, under our current system such low-income people are disregarded as lazy, underachievers because of their socio-economic class. A designation labeled onto them despite rigorous efforts at improving their lot through education. This task would be easier if working class and young people were actually able to access higher education.

I believe the term ‘mediocre’ is a fitting word to attribute to an administration which views funding state sanctioned murder as a more pressing concern than providing for its citizens. You see, the Military Industrial Complex exists for two reasons and two reasons only: To start wars and for capitalists to make profits. That’s it! The government controls over 1000 military bases worldwide; bases which they use to dictate the world stage of affairs³. Each base must be filled with troops, small arms and ammunition, weapon systems, and food. Obviously this is all expensive and is indicative of only a single base.⁴

This total amounts to over 800 billion dollars, however, this tally doesn’t include the amount spent financing expansionist wars, “donations” to sympathetic armed factions, and the salaries of “fighting men.” Instead this marks only the expenditures for the Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Army branches; the strain of them purchasing battleships, tanks and fighter jets, small arms and protective gear. When one adds in the amount of this “hidden” waste the sum skyrockets; total war in Iraq and Afghanistan, covert operations in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, as well as the continued defense of client states Israel, South Korea, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, the true total, while breathtaking, is at least four trillions dollars!

Hear that? That was trillion, with a “t.” For the same amount over 530thousand children could receive low- income healthcare, 15.2million elementary school teachers and 17.4million firefighters could receive salaries for a year, over 939million households could revive renewable wind- powered electricity, and over a 131million college students could receive year ‘round scholarships.

This is the reality of life in Maine so as long as we continue to allow the para-fascist 1% to dictate our future. Such people need the 99% to believe the delusion they spread -delusion about capitalism, about wealth distribution, and resource allocation-because they need all afraid of foes which do not exist. They need all brainwashed into believing this manufactured fairytale about terrorists all while ignoring the fact the United States is the world’s biggest funder of actual terrorism. The truth is stark: we have no enemies; we make our own future and if we are to create, as some here wish, a horizontal workers democracy, than what we must do is rise up and overthrow the 1%.

1 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

2 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/rural_schools.html

3 http://militaryindustrialcomplex.com/what-is-the-military-industrial-complex.asp

4 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5564

Mayor Karen Heck was introduced by MC Mark Roman as the person currently holding the office last held by the governor. Her remarks stressed the local impact of budget cuts that continue to roll out of Augusta:

My name is Karen Heck and I am the Mayor of Waterville. Our city is facing an $800,00 shortfall between our expected revenue for the city and $1.6 million less this year than last for our schools…and that’s without spending the money we should be investing in our youngest residents, those 0-3, at a time when they are developing 85% of their brains. If we could be fully supporting their healthy development, we could be reaping the benefits within a few short years of lower special education costs, higher fourth grade achievement scores and higher graduation rates. Instead, we are being forced to cut 12 more teachers in our K to 12 system, don’t have enough money to staff an available infant and toddler classroom, and are facing the elimination of two head start classrooms due to proposed elimination of state funded Head Start. 

What kind of country have we become when we are killing and maiming women and children half way around the globe at the same time we are abandoning poor women and children here at home? It is time we stopped this madness and brought our war dollars home.

An issue even closer to my heart than the lost revenue for our struggling cities and towns, is the disruption of families and the loss of life. Two years ago, the family of Alan and Mary Slack received the kind of news no parent should have to hear. Their 19 year old son Wade had been killed in Afghanistan. A year and a half later, Alan Slack died of a broken heart leaving the family coping with the loss of two of its members due to the war. Another family in our town, is now on pins and needles praying for the safe return of their father and husband. Dr. Joseph Lopes was called up to return to the war for the fourth time in the past 5 years. 

You can bet if we had a draft and the sons and daughters of Congressional leaders were being called to duty, we would have been home years ago. I am sick to death of watching old men send young men and now women to war while they do nothing more than wear flag lapel pins and drive around with yellow ribbons on their cars. We need to stop this madness. We need the President to overrule the generals, stop the fighting and bring our war dollars home now.

Tammy Trask of MAIN gave stirring testimony of the effects on Maine's poorest families while the governor looked on.

Loren Snow from Food AND Medicine, a retired state worker, gave the gritty facts of barely surviving on a pension and health care benefits that are being whittled away year after year. Loren thought he had worked many years to earn a secure retirement caring for an ailing spouse and a disabled adult child who still lives at home.

The governor, who had been halted by some in the crowd chanting "shame, shame" as he scurried into his office near the rally, gave this non-verbal response (zoom in to see what the governor learned in Kindergarten):

photo credit: Peter Woodruff

 Full coverage of all speakers at the rally will soon be available from Occupy Maine TV. Stay tuned!

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.

Why fear the power of art?

Fear of art stalks the muddy land. As if piles of snow in April weren't bad enough, we Mainers, like masses of other people in the world, are besieged by the Forces of Greed (F.o.G.) hacking and slashing their way through the structures of civil society. 

That fearful art, Judy Taylor's now-famous mural depicting Maine labor history, will have a day in court next week. On Tuesday, April 19 there'll be a hearing at 10:00am in the Federal Courthouse in Bangor on a suit charging that Governor LePage violated citizens' First Amendment right of access to the mural by removing it. 

From the press release:

The court proceedings are open to the public. Those who attend the hearing will march at its conclusion in a parade from the courthouse to the rally about 11:30 at Pierce Park,  next to the Bangor Public Library. Everyone who supports the First Amendment, labor rights, and ethical governance is invited to join in. Bring signs and musical instruments if you can.

Why fear the power of art? I'll let these images from the most recent Draw-in at the State House in Augusta April 4 speak for themselves.

"Babe in Arms" by Nora Tryon. Additional powerful images here.

 “Whatever happens at the hearing,” notes artist Joan Braun, one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the governor, “we know that we will ultimately prevail. The will of the people of Maine cannot be disregarded without serious consequences..."

These attacks on working people globally are all of a piece.

Chris Hedges laid out cause for serious consequences in his discussion of the wholesale destruction of public education. He was talking about  the U.S.A. but he could just as well have said in the Americas considering what's going on in Honduras and Oxaca, Mexico.

Since the '09 coup in Honduras that Obama and the F.o.G. supported, the privatization of public education -- and the destruction of the powerful associations of public school teachers -- is on. "Rob the teachers' pension fund; buy tear gas and ammunition" a familiar F.o.G. strategy world-wide is reported here by Karen Spring & Annie Bird of Honduras Regime Impunity Watch.  The 3.2 million members of my union, the National Education Association, have yet to rise -- but they did send a letter. So can you.

Attacks are a lot more violent in other places where the struggle is more advanced. Instead of hiding a mural, F.o.G. violently attacks community radio stations and broadcasters in Honduras. Or, if the stakes are very high, people simply disappear.

In Bahrain, disappearances and torture are increasingly being brought against nonviolent pro-democracy activists, with the help and collusion of our mutual good friend Saudi Arabia. How hard will the Forces of Greed fight to keep Bahrain functioning as host to an enormous U.S. navy base? Pretty damn hard.

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.