Empires Eat Children -- Change My Mind

This is a really depressing post, so let's get to it before the longest, darkest day of the year is upon us a week from now.

What got me started down this dark path is the news that presumed CIA spook Anne Sacoolas failed to appear for trial in the UK after she killed teenager Harry Dunn. The victim was doing nothing wrong, simply riding his motorcycle along on the road near RAF Croughton, used by the Pentagon as a spying outpost. 

Sacoolas, with typical imperial hubris, was driving on the wrong side of the road. 

Probably a simple tragic accident but Sacoolas turned it to a real crime by fleeing the country. It has taken Dunn's family three years to have their day in court but they were denied the opportunity to see justice: Sacoolas was acquitted of driving dangerously, convicted of driving carelessly, and received a paltry 8 month sentence which she will not have to serve if she kills no other kids in the coming year. Even if she did, the UK appears unable and/or unwilling to have her extradited to face charges.

Left to right: Anne Sacoolas & Harry Dunn

Her attorney's explanation for Sacoolas' failure to appear in court and hasty departure from the country following the accident: "diplomatic immunity." According to Sky News:

The court heard that she had been advised by American officials not to fly to the UK, as her return "could place significant US interests at risk".

If one of Sacoolas' own three children is murdered someday, I'm sure she will understand that U.S. interests will receive higher priority than bringing the family some justice.

Okay, so one evil lady and her enabling government. What's the other evidence for my claim?

JROTC students on parade

How about the news -- being treated as a blockbuster exposé  -- that teenagers in places like Detroit, Michigan (i.e. low income with a high proportion of students who are Black or otherwise of color) are enrolled in JROTC programs without their consent. Told if they ask that this Pentagon program requiring them to wear military uniforms and be shouted at by military personnel posing as "teachers" is mandatory. Which is a lie, but if your guidance counselor in 9th grade won't change your schedule after you request it, becomes a de facto truth.

I know you will be shocked to learn that the textbooks used in middle school and high school JROTC programs paint a rosy picture of the U.S. worldwide empire of military bases. And the intentions behind them.

If I'm not shocked it's because as a high school teacher for many years I organized against the presence of military recruiters in the lunch room, their access to students during the school day, and the allegedly mandatory ASFAB test harvesting demographic and knowledge base info on teenagers without parental consent. My state does have JROTC programs also though I never taught at a school that had one.

When you look up groomers in the dictionary what you should see is a military recruiter handing a teenager the gift of a cell phone. But, this word has been hijacked by right-wingers claiming teachers are trying to turn students gay or trans.

Left to right: Prince Andrew, American teen Virginia Giufrre at age 17, & Ghislaine Maxwell

Speaking of groomers, let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein's little black book of contacts none of whom have been outed or charged for actual pedophile crimes. Grooming is a key component of convincing teen girls to have sex with old, powerful men and the currently incarcerated Ghislaine Maxwell was in charge of that operation.

It's generally understood that Epstein (who supposedly committed suicide in prison when the guards fell asleep and the security cameras malfunctioned) and Maxwell worked for Mossad. Israel's international spy agency functions as an integral if secretive part of the U.S. imperial system of coercion. (Though NATO's war against Russia may be weakening this alliance.)

The black book names we do know about, most prominently Prince Andrew of the UK royal family, were only revealed because individual victims like the immensely brave Virginia Giuffre pursued legal action against her rapist. Before Queen Elizabeth II died the monarch had stripped Andrew of his honors and titles, and had UK taxpayers shell out a settlement presumed to be enormous.

Of course teenage girls in nations invaded by imperial troops do not even need to be groomed.

 They can be raped at will, then murdered along with their families to cover up the crimes.

My final piece of evidence: 

the U.S. Congress just voted $858 BILLION for next year's military budget.

Actual figures for 2021. The $858 billion is budgeted for 2023.

Meanwhile, 1 in 6 children in the U.S. are growing up in poverty. 

This makes them the poorest age group of any here in the heart of an empire hungry for cannon fodder.

Most Damning Indictment Of Kleptocracy And Capitalism: Infants Crying Because There Are No More Clean Diapers In Their Home

The most damning indictment of capitalism possible appeared on the refrigerator at my school this week. It announced a diaper drive in my area, an effort which I'm confident the staff at my school will participate in. 

The Kennebec Valley Community Action Program created a flyer which was posted with a handwritten note that a staff member will deliver the diapers we bring to school next week.

I will donate diapers and gladly, but it's a perfect example of why charity will not get us as a society out of the disgusting mess capitalism has created.

Despite what the flyer claims, charity is not a solution to this problem.

Here are some of the facts shared on the flyer that I as a middle class grandmother found traumatizing. I can only imagine how traumatized are the children, parents and grandparents experiencing diaper distress. (Increasingly, children in dire poverty around here are raised by their grandparents).

• 36% of mothers living in poverty regularly run out of clean diapers.
• You cannot buy diapers with food stamps.
• Babies in soiled diapers cry more, and are abused more. Somerset County where I live has the highest rate of child abuse in Maine, and 1/3 of children live in poverty.
• Parents who have run out of diapers feel guilty, anxious and stressed.

Some of the questions running through my brain:

What would a person in another country think of the U.S. if they knew these sordid facts about how we care for our most vulnerable community members?

Source: Maine Equal Justice Partners "It's time to end child poverty)

Is America great again in light of these realities?

Will elections that put in place candidates from either of the two corporate parties fix this shameful problem? 

For those who blame the victims, yes by all means let's criticize mothers in poverty for using expensive disposable diapers instead of virtuous cloth diapers washed by hand in the bathroom sink. Because a hallmark of poverty is lack of a washer and/or dryer in the house (often, lack of hot water in the house), and if you've ever used cloth diapers you would understand that a daily trip to the laundromat and a whole lot of quarters would be required if you can't wash them at home. A diaper service like I used when my children were babies -- if you could even find one in rural Maine -- costs just about the same as disposables i.e. approximately $100 a month. That is after you have purchased the pricey diaper covers that hold everything in place and make it waterproof. And a whole lot of washcloths or disposable wipes for those blowouts when the baby poop extends up their back and down their legs (my youngest grandchild's parents cut her onesie off her with scissors to extricate their daughter from a mega blowout when she was around 5 months old.)

Flooded hog farm, photographer unknown (Source: https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3321/3238701897_c86eabd6dd.jpg)

When I told my husband about how horrified I was after reading the flyer, he was reminded that he had been horrified hearing radio reporting on the hog feces flowing into towns downstream from industrial scale farms in the path of Hurricane Florence. Rescue workers are warning that folks returning to clean their flooded homes will be exposed to E. coli, and that town water supplies are also at risk.

It appears to me that late stage capitalism will drown in its own shit before the people wise up, rise up, and shut the system down by withdrawing their cooperation.

Women could do this quickly if they just stopped showing up for work.

If the date rapist candidate for the Supreme Court is confirmed, women may very well get angry enough to do so feeling that their reproductive freedom is at stake.

Otherwise, the kleptocracy now in power will have successfully captured the judiciary of the federal government at its highest level. Moneyed interests will decide everything from how much health care your great grandmother receives, to whether climate change and catastrophic storms are addressed, to how many clean diapers your baby is entitled to. Don't bother suing because a) you can't afford it and b) if you make it to the Supreme Court, you'll lose.

So much for checks and balances.

Any system that treats children like ours does deserves to die.

We Fight Each Other With The Pieces Of Our Broken Hearts (I Will Survive)

Photo: Ben McCanna, Portland Press Herald

Austerity in the form of homelessness is a particularly ugly manifestation of capitalism and especially neoliberal economic policies. 

The U.S. is a wealthy nation that lacks universal health care, affordable housing, tuition free education through college, child care, public transportation to get to said job in most areas, and a guaranteed minimum income -- all things other wealthy nations offer in exchange for taxes. It's no surprise that, without these social safety nets, a lot of people end up homeless. Some of them are addicts, and some suffer from mental illness -- and neither of those health conditions is adequately addressed by federal, state or local governments.

Many homeless men and women are veterans of U.S, imperial wars, who joined out of economic distress in an attempt to get a college education afterwards. Or maybe just a pickup truck.

So when NIMBY motivated residents in, say, Los Angeles, pitch a fit about locating temporary emergency homeless shelters in their neighborhood, they look callous and uncaring.

But the reality is that a homeless shelter can turn a neighborhood into something a homeless veteran described as worse than anything she had ever seen in the many other countries she had visited. As explained by social workers, it's the predators who move in to exploit vulnerable people who do the most to erode living conditions in the blocks around a homeless shelter or soup kitchen.

Photo: Ben McCanna, Portland Press Herald

No one who has heroin addicts congregating in their apartment's laundry room to shoot up can be blamed for objecting.

Those of us fortunate enough to own our (mortgaged) homes watch with dismay as the value of our property falls away when a homeless shelter is introduced to the area. 

These structural problems with the U.S. economy are not accidental.

When homeless people and working class homeowners are pitted against each other, the wealthy can sit back and watch the show.

I'm reminded at times like these of the Occupy Oakland revision of Gloria Gaynor's old disco hit: I Will Survive...Capitalism. The line "we fight each other with the pieces of our broken hearts" has stayed with me since I first heard it during the heady days of 2011's Occupy Wall St. movement.





While the demagogue with bad hair initiates trade wars with friend and foe alike, austerity like nothing we've seen in decades is waiting in the wings. Military spending gallops along, and state lawmakers fall all over themselves offering tax giveaways to weapons manufacturers.

Image: Suzanna Lasker

Will we make common cause and support each other, or fight it out while the wealthy continue to hoard housing, health care and higher education for their families?

My husband asked me recently what form of education I thought could possibly equip children to face the world of climate collapse and food shortages looming on their horizon. He's a grandparent but not an educator, and he's asking me because I'm a teacher struggling with the unmet needs of my high poverty school.

Learn to be flexible problem solvers and, above all, learn to cooperate and collaborate with other people.

Those are the main skills I can think of passing on for survival in the cruel new world we're passing on to the children. Who know what tomorrow will bring? Our love and intelligence are the only things we can really count on.

Impending Theft of Resources From Children In Poverty To Enrich Millionaires Who Own General Dynamics' BIW

Yesterday my husband had a hard day.

Mark found our representative in the Maine Legislature, Bradlee Farrin (R-District 111), and spoke with him about opposing LD1781, a $45 million tax giveaway bill that will likely come to a vote next week.

Photos: Peter Woodruff, retired BIW worker

Mark's been going regularly to Augusta, a 2+ hour round trip, to lobby against corporate welfare for General Dynamics/Bath Iron Works. This week he went twice, once on Tuesday and again on Thursday.

He's been leaving phone messages for Farrin but had not had a return call yet, so he was on the lookout to speak with him in person.

A former legislator now lobbying for outdoor recreation, Jeff McCabe, helped Mark find Farrin in the throngs of school children on field trips and lobbyists in expensive shoes. McCabe pointed Farrin out in the crowd saying, he's the guy with the amazing tan. (Farrin is from the central Maine town of Norridgewock, and represents a district marked by profound poverty.)

My husband waited for Farrin to finish talking to a man he recognized as the lawyer from Preti Flaherty who was always by BIW vice president John Fitzgerald's side in taxation committee work sessions for LD 1781

Farrin told Mark he will vote yes on a tax giveaway for GD/BIW because we "need jobs," and then he began badmouthing waste in schools, and unions driving up the cost of doing business at BIW. Mark told him the biggest union at BIW, S6, had voted not to endorse LD1781. This news appeared to alarm Farrin who quickly consulted his phone. Then he told Mark that S6 hasn't endorsed yet because they are waiting for further negotiations.

Photo: Portland Press Herald

Preti Flaherty is a lobbying firm that bills many, many hours working for corporations like General Dynamics. As GD/BIW survives on Pentagon contracts that our federal taxes fund and that have the costs of doing business (and paying state and local taxes) built in, you could say that the Preti Flaherty lawyer arguing for corporate welfare for his client is paid by me and thee.

The 43,000 children living in poverty don't have Preti Flaherty lawyers on their side for the simple reason that they cannot afford them.

Ditto the 20,000 of them living in deep poverty, many of whom reside in inadequate housing in Farrin's district.

Advocacy organizations like Maine Equal Justice Partners that track and address childhood poverty must compete with lobbyists who can offer inducements like trips and big campaign contributions. (The $$ is often laundered through PACs that make their origins hard to trace.)

Mark came home yesterday from Augusta angry and discouraged.

He's afraid the bill will pass in a floor vote likely to come next week. 

Despite hunger strikes, hundreds of letters to editors, and constituent contacts that Senator "Brownie" Carson of Brunswick (a town adjacent to Bath) told one of our band of citizen lobbyists exceeded any other issue he's ever heard from voters about.

Mark was angry about the impending theft of resources from the poor children of our state in favor of the millionaires and billionaires who own and operate General Dynamics and BIW.

He was discouraged because its hard for him to spend the day surrounded by slick lobbyists on expense accounts telling lies and offering bribes in what should be the government of, by and for the people of Maine.

My husband is idealistic. He believes the roughly 30% income tax rate that he and I pay should go to fix the roads, fund education, house and feed needy children. It makes him feel slightly sick to spend the day among cynical opportunists. He cherishes his beloved community of citizen lobbyists who have returned again and again to speak up for those without the resources to be there themselves.

I'm idealistic, too. But I'm uplifted by his report that every time he goes to the State House there are class field trips ranging in age from elementary to high school. Those children read the signs our side is holding even if their teachers won't let them take the informative flyers that Mark is handing out. 

Photo: Peter Woodruff

I tell Mark, the children see their teachers censoring your message. That makes your information more appealing to many teens and tweens who witness the fact that the adults seem scared to let them find out more about why you're against General Dynamics.

Of course my mood is probably better because I get to spend the day with little kids while Mark is in Augusta. It's a dirty rotten job for my sweetheart, but somebody's got to do it.

The Progressive Caucus meets next week to hear from Democratic "leadership" as they try to justify opposing the Republican tax bill benefiting the 1% while endorsing corporate welfare for, um, the 1%.

We hope for a big turnout at the State House on Tuesday, March 27 from 9:30am on. If you can't make it, you can use this tool to send legislators an email: NO corporate welfare for General Dynamics!

The Shame Of Underfunding Education To Make Fat Cats Even Fatter

A new cartoon by Suzanna Lasker, Maine artist and activist, depicts a woman watching a wealthy weapons manufacturer running away with a big sack full of public tax dollars. The man looks smug while the woman and the child clinging to her look sad and anxious.

As well they should be. 

The legislature in our state is poised to consider a bill to make sure that General Dynamics' Bath Iron Work shipyard can continue feasting at the public trough. (Not the workers, though. They just accepted a contract freezing their wages for the next four years.) Plenty of Democrats intend to vote for a bill to excuse GD/BIW from $55 million of their state taxes over the next 20 years.

Meanwhile the legislature has never honored its own commitment plus a subsequent referendum instructing them to fund public education at the 55% level, with the remainder made up by local property taxes in the towns where the schools are. Currently the state's level of support is 47%.

They have also infamously not honored a citizen referendum passed last year to put funds directly into K-12 education raised by a 3% surtax on Mainers in the top 2% income bracket.

In my tiny, very poor school district our annual budget is roughly $11 million. The superintendent let the board know recently that, due to a shortfall in the contribution from the state for school year '18-19, we need to cut the budget by around $750,000 in order to keep local taxes from going through the roof.

My district has precious little for a tax base besides residential. A few of our towns have a couple of businesses that employ people full time like a wooden flooring mill and a concrete supplier; the town my little preK-5 school is in has a store, a laundromat, two diners, a nail salon and...that's about it.

Outsourcing manufacturing to nations where wages are low and worker protection laws are even lower has shuttered all the mills that used to make cloth, paper and shoes. And with them went the taxes they once paid.

The town in my district with the most wealth is located around beautiful Embden Pond, and the properties there -- mostly waterfront -- are taxed at a rate that has driven several efforts to secede from the district, as yet unsuccessful.

Banner: ARRT!

Last week two teachers came to the principal in tears. A Kindergarten student had announced that she would be unable to come to school the following day because her dad had to work to get money to buy the family some food. Her classroom teacher had told me back in the fall that she thought the child's family suffered from food insecurity. We can address this problem for preK-12 because our district is poor enough to qualify for federal aid that feeds everyone who wants it breakfast and lunch every day.

We also have a food pantry coordinated by our overworked school social workers (we have two serving four buildings), and a grant supplies all elementary classrooms with a fresh fruit or vegetable at snack time 3 days a week. It used to be 5 days a week but food prices rose and the grant funding did not.

But what about snow days, when children cannot come and eat at school?

And how cold are they in households with a choice between heating and eating? One little boy who moved frequently told his 1st grade teacher that they were about to move again because his family had been sleeping in an unheated camper in November, and it was getting too cold to stay.

Another 1st grader has been living all winter in a trailer with a roof that leaks. Her mom has told the teacher the children will be leaving our school soon as they have a chance to move in with an uncle who has a place to live in another town.

Poverty and a low level of education are closely correlated, by the way.

These are examples of the 20,000 children growing up in deep poverty as a subset of the 43,000 in families with incomes below the federal poverty line (which is very low to begin with). These statistics stemming from U.S. Census data are frequently ignored or disputed by Maine's corporate "news" sources.

Right wing hate mongers will blame the adults for their poverty. Many, many adults in my area suffer what have been called the diseases of despair: depression, anxiety, addiction and suicide. I know five and six year olds that have already lost one or both parents to a drug overdose. Many are being raised by their grandparents.

General Dynamics, on the other hand, pays its CEO $21 million a year. It has spent $9 billion buying back its own stocks to build value in the shares its top executives receive fat bonuses for increasing. And things are about to get even better: CEO Novakovich recently told shareholders in a conference call that she regarded the federal tax bonanza for wealthy corporations as "a happy event."


It is shameful to underfund public education for children in poverty while handing out tax bonuses to wealthy corporations.


It is not what the people want, but their representatives are already bought and sold by lobbyists for those same corporations.

The corporate media are in on the deal, too. They have made sure to run lots of coverage of proposed tax giveaway in a favorable light. It's about jobs, you see, because GD/BIW threatens to close the shipyard and throw 5,000 or so people out of work if they don't get what they are demanding.

A friend who's on an extended hunger strike against this bill has described Maine as a corporate colony. This excellent piece by investigative reporter Alex Nunes elaborates on how that works: "Bruce Gagnon Is Right; Maine Has Been Outsourced To Bath Iron Works."

My husband Mark will be back in the halls of the legislature with Bruce and other dedicated souls next week, hoping to shame self-described progressive Democrats and maybe some Independents into voting no on LD 1781 corporate welfare for GD/BIW. Republicans are probably a lost cause because they have watched too much Fox News claiming that trickle down economics works, but my friends will lobby them anyway. 

Here's the message I sent my rep and state senator yesterday. I didn't bother telling them about child poverty in Maine as they are both GOP right wingers who blame the victims of capitalism's exploitation.

Graphic: Andrew Watkins

Dear Rep. Farrin and Sen. Whittemore, 

I hope you can find the time to read the article below about General Dynamics, parent company of Bath Iron Works. 

It seems to me that a corporation that has over $3 billion in profits per year and can afford over $9 billion in stock buybacks is in great financial shape.
I urge you to vote against this unnecessary corporate hand out. General Dynamics/BIW does not need $55 million from the taxpayers of Maine. Use the money to fix our roads and bridges instead! 

Please write back and tell me how you intend to vote on LD 1781. 

Thanks,Lisa Savage 

Defense firms spend big on lucrative stock buybacks (Providence Journal, 11/3/17)

The Maine People's Alliance, a lobbying group for Democrats in Maine, has declined to come out against the bill even though they supposedly stand for funding social needs. Their former executive Ryan Tipping now co-chairs the taxation committee, and he voted ought to pass last week after describing how squeamish he was at doing so. They all get their campaign funds from the same corporations, laundered through PACs that make the origin of the cash difficult to trace.

The shame of underfunding education while using public funds to make fat cats even fatter should deter legislators from voting for LD 1781.

Unfortunately, most of them have put themselves into a self-serving bubble that is beyond shame. But as Stormy Daniels famously said, "Karma will always bite you in the ass."

Going All 15 Rounds Doing Rope-a-Dope Against Corporate Welfare For General Dynamics

It's mud season in Maine and the potholes are getting wicked bad. (Thanks to Andrew Watkins for this graphic.)

The legislature is looking for $60 million to fix roads and bridges, and I think I know where they can find it.

Yes, the tax giveaway for General Dynamics that is headed to the floor passed the taxation committee with a compromise: $55 million over 20 years instead of $60 million.

Big wow.

Both major newspapers that reported on the vote got the amount wrong but it's not surprising considering the flurry of amendments cobbled together over the course of four work sessions on the bill. The amendments were designed to make the bill more palatable to legislators whose constituents are howling for an end to corporate welfare -- to date there have been 80 letters against the scheme in papers across Maine.

BIW bussed in scores of salaried employees to pack the taxation committee meeting room
hours in advance of the 1pm work session. Here they are seen leaving after the vote was taken.

Only about two opponents of the 27 present that day made it into the room with the rest sitting in the halls or kettled into the "overflow room."
That indicates to me the committee and BIW were nervous about a possible disturbance.

Two Democrats on the committee found the backbone to not only speak against the bill, but to vote "ought not to pass" this week. Mad props to Sen. Justin Chenette and Rep. Janice Cooper, also for asking hardball questions during the hearings and work sessions.

Other Democrats on the committee made a great show of squeamishness but then justified their vote in favor by saying General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works was threatening job loss or even closure if the bill did not pass. In Mark Roman's video above you can hear Rep. Ryan Tipping, the committee co-chair, weasling around to voting "yes" for a bill he characterized as "a race to the bottom."

Why a grown up would cave to a bully and admit it in public is beyond me, but then I don't like to be bullied and will vigorously resist lest the bully think I'm an easy target.


This brings me to the high velocity trolls trotted out to comment on Kevin Miller's coverage of the committee vote in the Portland Press Herald. Such paid commentators are distinguishable from regular Mainers whose politics are different from mine. Both groups' comments are characterized by the use of nasty invective and personal attacks, but the paid trolls can spell tricky words like "you're" correctly and they throw around right wing insults like "virtue signalling" even though its clear they don't know what the phrase actually means.

Someone, most likely BIW vice president John Fitzgerald, has also introduced the meme of doubting the veracity of Bruce Gagnon's now 25 day hunger strike against the tax giveaway bill.

The editor of the local paper, John Swinconeck of the Times Record, introduced this theme when he doubted that Gagnon could fast for a mere 10 days and still be capable of standing at the gates of BIW during the shift change each noon with leaflets.

Clearly editor Swinconeck doesn't know much about fasting or about Gagnon's tenacity (or experience with hunger strikes in the past). 

He used his ignorance of this and other pertinent facts -- for example, that there are 43,000 children in poverty in Maine according to the last U.S. Census -- as a pretext for refusing a scheduled op-ed by Gagnon. (Gagnon then submitted the rejected piece to the Bangor Daily News where it was published today.)

Then, Swinconeck followed up by canceling altogether the monthly widely-read column submitted by various members of Peaceworks of Greater Brunswick. I've submitted a few of those columns and am proud to have found myself among a group of thoughtful, intelligent and compassionate thinkers and writers. Rosie Paul's column in February, "An opportunity for choosing people over profit," will apparently be the last one published.

RIP freedom of the press. Corporate government and corporate media march ever more closely in step.

Gagnon encountered GD/BIW brass Fitzgerald outside BIW back on Day 3, and Fitzgerald yelled at him. He appeared to be angered by Gagnon's presence with supporters (in an email to bill co-sponsor and Bath rep Jennifer DeChant, Fitzgerald dismissed Gagnon as a "one man band"). On this day Gagnon made reference to a speech Fitzgerald's father, once president of BIW before it was owned by General Dynamics, made on Labor Day in 1994. Along with union officials, then Sen. George Mitchell and then President Bill Clinton, Fitzgerald called for conversion of the shipyard's huge industrial capacity to diversify from building nothing but weapons of mass destruction.

In the highly militarized, belligerent 21st Century, the need for conversion is an unwelcome truth.

And by the way, the largest union at GD/BIW -- Local S6 -- has declined to endorse LD 1781, the bill supporters claim is for the workers. The workers were recently bullied by GD/BIW to accept a contract with a four year salary freeze, and they are pissed about it.

In case you need a chuckle at this point, Gagnon sent me a report of his chance meeting after the vote on March 6:

On the way out the capitol building I ran into Fitzgerald who was talking to one of their lobbyists – I made two fists, danced around and hollered out like Ali – "We might be on the ropes, but we going all 15 rounds doing rope-a-dope – we still in this fight all the way – we doing the rope-a-dope and going all the way!"

Susan Collins Brags To Me About Her Vote For Tax Law To Benefit General Dynamics

Not only Congress but also the Maine Legislature is pressured by General Dynamics to provide tax relief. Maine Democrats Rep. Jennifer DeChant and Sen. Eloise Vitelli are sponsoring a bill to give GD $60 million from state coffers this year  --  because servicing corporations is a thoroughly bipartisan affair.

Maine's senators are wealthy people. Senator Susan Collins has just sent me a long email explaining why I should be delighted that she helped pass a tax bill that 78% of her constituents responding to a poll in the Bangor Daily News said will not benefit them.


Most of us allegedly represented by Collins are not at all wealthy, and her claim that we will benefit under the new tax laws is only true in the very short term.


Long term, the already wealthy will become much, much wealthier. In Collins' letter these are known as employers, and she is proud of talking to them:

How the legislation treats employers has been the subject of much debate, but the reality is that the United States cannot continue to have the highest corporate tax rate in the world at 35 percent.  We are losing jobs.  I talked to General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works; United Technology, which employs over 1,900 people at Pratt & Whitney in North Berwick; General Electric, which has a major plant in Bangor; Procter & Gamble, which employs 400 workers in Auburn; and Idexx, an important high-tech employer in Westbrook, about the positive difference the new law will make in their ability to create jobs in Maine.  Indeed, on the day Congress sent the bill to the President, Cianbro Corporation announced it intends to hire an additional 300 people next year.

 ("Talking" here means finding out what they want her to do in exchange for massive campaign contributions these corporations have and will continue to make.)

Graph from a Providence Journal article by Alex Nunes "Defense firms spend big on lucrative stock buybacks" 12/3/17

Maine is indeed losing jobs, because corporations like General Dynamics use their extra cash from tax relief to buy back their own stock and to provide massive salaries and bonuses to their CEOs. They do not use tax relief to create jobs (nor are they paying taxes at 30%) despite their claims to the contrary.



Mainer Michael Anthony calculated that "$60 million in proposed tax cuts is the equivalent of rewarding BIW $375,000 for every job they cut last year."

I spent the day in Sagadahoc County court yesterday with my trial family, the Aegis 9, who were arrested last April protesting at BIW. We stood nonviolently with our messages intended for senators and other dignitaries being whisked through the gates in limousines, and as a result were charged with criminal trespass. Our messages were not allowed into the public relations event "christening" another warship that the U.S. does not need, while 43,000 children in Maine are living in poverty.

I could take my concerns to Maine's other senator, the allegedly moderate, independent Angus King.

But I have to work. Also, this school teacher doesn't have $1,000 to take a "really inexpensive cruise" with the senator and his corporate cronies.

The organizer of Senator King's fundraising event also brags on his website about his skill in "talking" to lawmakers, because this is how the sausage gets made in Washington.

But who opens doors for the approximately 20,000 Maine children in deep poverty currently enduring weeks of subzero temperatures? 

For this reason, and so many more: