Maine Is One Big Small Town & Now We Have Mass Shootings, Too

Awoke to news that an Army Reserve firearms instructor who is living with psychosis (hears voices, and was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment recently) shot up a bar and a bowling alley in Lewiston last night. The above photo is allegedly security cam footage from the bowling alley. The shooter is white and in his 40's, on the run, and considered dangerous.

Bowdoin (pronounced Boh-den) is really taking a beating lately. The shooter is from that very small town as was last summer's shooter who came out of prison in another state and immediately massacred his parents and two of their friends. Then went out to Interstate 295 and started shooting at cars.

The college by the same name, which is in Brunswick not Bowdoin, is on lockdown this morning. So is Bates College where my gun-loving representative, Marine veteran Jared Golden earned his degree after returning from killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Why can other countries control gun violence but the U.S. won't or can't?

Shooter Robert Card's social media presence was that of a right wing nut case. You know, kind of like the new Speaker of the House whose first act in office will be bringing forward a bill to send Israel more billions to continue their slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Not achieving gun control is a Democratic Party strategy akin to not saving abortion access -- so useful to fundraise off of that there is low motivation to solve the problem. 

In Maine, a hunting state with weak gun control laws, the Democrats control both the Senate and the House, and the Governor is a Democrat also. Will this be enough to pass strong gun control laws in the wake of last night's massacre? Doubtful, but I can hope.

When I say Maine is one big small town I mean things like my grandson's cousins on his mom's side live in Auburn, a twin city to Lewiston. His older cousin will not attend school today as all schools for miles around are closed while the manhunt continues.

Back in 2020 when I ran against Susan Collins for her senate seat, Project Veritas "tricked" me into admitting I believe in gun control. Subsequently Collins voted "no" on background checks, a fact being circulated widely on social media. 

Both corporate parties profit from violence, domestically and abroad. Neither will do anything meaningful to stop it. We have lost our representation in government, which breeds fear, which spikes gun sales. Meanwhile we have hugely inadequate mental health care because we have hugely inadequate health care of any sort.

It doesn't have to be this way, but it will continue until the people wrest control of their government back from corporate interests. Second Amendment defenders will tell you that's why they need to cling to their guns, to ward off tyranny. Sorry fellas but the government's drones, robots, lasers, and directed energy weapons are not threatened by your AR-15.

But you are, because the people most likely to die of gun violence are...gun owners.

The way to bring down this miserable government is a general strike. But that is a subject for another time.

To The Gun Lovers: Here's Why I Won't Stand With You Confronting White Supremacists If I Know You're Carrying Concealed

Mourners after the El Paso shooting targeting Latinx people according to the shooter's manifesto. Photo credit: DNYUZ

I live in Maine's 2nd district, now represented by a gun-loving combat veteran who I predict will do nothing to respond to the three mass shootings last week in the USA.

(Note: I do not count offering "thoughts and prayers" as doing anything.)

Rep. Jared Golden has his staff write back to me about gun control saying that my neighbors, his constituents, don't want it, and that he went to Congress to represent them. How much the corruption riddled NRA has to do with his position will remain a sore subject with liberals scrambling to defend Democrat Golden because he replaced the odious GOP incumbent.

Recently I got involved in a group on social media committed to standing up to anti-immigrant white supremacists here in Maine. A friend of a friend started a public group and it burgeoned quickly into a group with several angry-sounding males expounding the virtues of gun ownership and use. It wasn't taken kindly when I commented that I would not be joining in where guns were present to witness and document white supremacist activity, or to defend neighbors being snitched on to ICE storm troopers.

Apparently I am an old white boomer (redundant with old) whose privilege has protected me from violence and who doesn't understand. The fact that I am a woman and thus a default target of violence from childhood doesn't seem to occur to them.

My clearly stated objection -- that the probability of injury to everyone goes up significantly when loaded guns are present -- was mocked as "guns are icky" by the young men.

The group appeared to lack moderation and focus. Debate over strategy and/or tactics among activists who share a goal can be divisive, especially if conducted in public, so I left. I continued to think about and talk about the issue while absorbing news of three mass shootings by angry young white men in a week: Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton.

Here's one acquaintance's report on the Dayton shooter:

I don't know the shooters but I do know how they grew up: in a society steeped in violent images, with the opportunity to spend hundreds of hours pretending to shoot people on screens in order to "win." They also grew up surrounded by gun shops, gun shows, and heavy propaganda glorifying the death machine that is the U.S. military.

The Dayton shooter killed his own sister and 8 other people.

As reported in Heavy.com:

Betts was in ROTC in high school. A Dayton local newspaper purchased a social media background check on him that revealed he used words and phrases like “All Shall Be Annihilated,” “Bloodlust,” “Absolute Carnage,” and “Bloody Massacre.” 

According to a press conference given by Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, the weapon Betts used on Sunday morning was obtained legally. “The rifle was ordered online from Texas and transferred at an area firearms dealer,” said Biehl.

Many blame the demagogue with bad hair for hate language inciting the angry young white men of the USA, and its quite likely that his rhetoric is a factor.

But the violence that plagues us began long before he was "elected" to "lead" us.

Other countries similar to ours -- founded on attempted genocide of the indigenous people -- have achieved gun control effectively and drastically reduced the incidence of mass shootings: Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Eric Garner being choked to death by armed police on Staten Island five years ago this week. They didn't use guns to kill him for selling loose cigarettes on the street, but they were emboldened by being heavily armed. Image credit: Wikipedia

Black and brown people in the USA continue to suffer extreme levels of violence from the trained and licensed gun-toting police, many of whom are clearly white supremacists hiding behind a badge and a uniform. (Many people of color believe carrying a gun will protect them, too; but it did not protect Philando Castile.)

I say disarm police, also.

I lived in Tokyo for four years and police did not carry guns. In the U.S. even "school resource officers" aka uniformed police carry guns. And they are often quite violent with students of color, and useless when a mass shooting is underway.

I say disarm combat veterans, also.

It will reduce the chances for them to shoot themselves or their families when experiencing PTSD symptoms that make them want to end it all.

These are short term solutions (that will not be used here in the gun-crazed USA). Long term solution for toxic gun culture? It might be to reduce the ratio of males to females significantly.

Could a Congress full of women like those of The Squad, i.e. not having clawed their way to the top of a system of violent patriarchy, pass meaningful gun control laws? 

Could an army of women who've had it with gun violence and were in charge of governance buy back a large portion of guns now in circulation? I think they could.

What I Really Care About: The War On The Poor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 8, 2019

Dear Lisa,

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Jared F. Golden
Member of Congress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Design by Russell Wray

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned...

Veterans Responsible For Recent Gun Massacres #ThousandOaks #TallahasseeShooting

Facebook photo posted by Scott Paul Beirle, the yoga class killer.

We already know that the face of mass violence in the gun-infested USA looks male and very, very white. This week, it's looking increasingly like a white male veteran of the empire's many wars.

Scott Paul Beierle, age 40, shot and killed two women and injured several other people at a yoga class in Tallahassee on November 2. Five months ago he was fired from his job as a substitute teacher on the grounds of "unprofessional conduct." Students complained that he would fixate on girl students and stare them down, describing him as giving off a "psychopath vibe." He had been arrested more than once for assault, and investigated for harassing women. He was resentful about being rejected by women, a self-styled "incel" who couldn't get a date. He made videos that included racist rants and praise for another gunman who killed women who wouldn't go out with him. After he shot up the yoga studio, he turned his weapon on himself.

In almost any other rich nation, Beierle would not have been allowed to own the gun he used to murder his victims before turning the weapon on himself.

Scott Bierle was a veteran. Little is known about his time in the Army during 2008-10. He joins the ranks of the 20 veterans who commit suicide each day in the USA.

Ian David Long was the 28 year old veteran who shot up a country music nightclub in Thousand Oaks, California on November 8. He killed 13 people -- if you include his own suicide --and wounded many others.

According to ABC News article, "Thousand Oaks shooter was part of 'new generation of veterans' psychologist says":

The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed Long served from 2008 to 2013, and was deployed to Afghanistan from November 16, 2010, to June 14, 2011...

"There's no front line. These wars have been fought primarily through improvised explosive devices," clinical psychologist Dr. Elena Klaw told ABC7 News. "So that means that every man, woman or child that you see could be an enemy."

Dr. Klaw is also the director of Veterans Embracing Transition at San Jose State University. She explained the combat experienced in the Iraq or Afghanistan wars could impact a veteran's transition to civilian life. 

"You can't tell who's an enemy, and who's a combatant and who isn't," she continued. "So that required an enormous amount of what we call hyper vigilance." 

"Veterans have told me that the hardest part of their service has been coming home," Klaw said.  

Long's neighbors told the media they suspect he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

Another mental health care provider did not agree. From CNN's story about the tragedy:

Thomas Burke, a pastor who served with Long in the same US Marine Corps regiment, said Long's battalion arrived during intense fighting in Helmand province.But Burke warned against too quickly blaming Long's actions on trauma experienced during war. 

"PTSD doesn't create homicidal ideation," Burke said. "We train a generation to be as violent as possible, then we expect them to come home and be OK. It's not mental illness. It's that we're doing something to a generation, and we're not responding to the needs they have."

A meme that's making the rounds: in the last 50 years, more people in the U.S. have died from gunshot wounds than ALL the people in the U.S. who died in all our wars.

Another angle on this story: the migrant waves from Central America and Mexico are made up of desperate people fleeing both poverty and epidemic gun violence. TeleSUR news reports that 2,000 guns made in the U.S. enter Mexico EVERY DAY.

Our endless (largely ignored) wars against people all over the planet, our fatally lax gun control, and our culture of  "entertainment" like video games where children are trained to kill for wins, have converged to create a perfect storm of violence.

From the VA:

From 2005 to 2016, Veteran and non-Veteran adult suicide rates increased 25.9 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively...

Veterans who are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide – and those who know a Veteran in crisis – can call the Veterans Crisis Line for confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Call 800-273-8255 and press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text to 838255.

Happy veterans day.

Dark Times

Gaza medics in identifying clothing approach wounded with their hands raised, but get shot anyway. You can contribute to support unarmed civilians being attacked by Israel's military here at Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Besides being overwhelmed at work and at home, I'm struggling this week with the darkness that seems to be closing in worldwide. It's hard to say which I'm more troubled by: Israel's slaughter of unarmed civilians at the Gaza border while kleptocrats partied in Jerusalem; U.S. warmongering against Iran; or confirmation of a known pregnant woman torturer to head the CIA. 

Yesterday there was another mass shooting at a high school, this time in Texas. The NRA, the enforcement arm of kleptocracy that keeps us all fearful, took time out from harassing teens who've survived school shootings to put convicted felon Oliver North at its helm.

Families began being ripped apart at the border as migrants fleeing violence in Central America attempted to cross over to safety. And, needless to say, the ongoing bad news of weapons corporations using taxpayer funding to lobby elected officials for tax breaks on top of the already gargantuan military budget with its attendant austerities for the people -- rolled on.

Then there were the small discouragements: all my postcards to Kings Bay Plowshares anti-nuclear activists were sent back rather than delivered. This small cruelty to the activists was expected because other correspondents had posted photos of their undelivered regulation post office issue postcards earlier in the week. I know that my first batch of postcards a few weeks ago were received, because I got replies from several of the conscientious objectors to nuclear warmongering. They were all arraigned last week and if they care to can post a $5000 bond and submit to house arrest with ankle monitors pending their trial. You can contribute to their bond fund here.

I've said before that I write this blog to keep my head from exploding as I attempt to process the bad news of our times.

Clearly, I should spend more time reading my friend Cecile Pineda's newsletter which always ends with a Roses Among Thorns section sharing encouraging, uplifting, hopeful current events. Thanks, Cecile, for your pinpoint of light shining in these dark times.

Seeding Sovereignty: The Notion That There Is A Rise In Gun Violence In This Country Is Actually A Misunderstanding Of History

From the indigenous feminist youth leaders of Seeding Sovereignty comes this concise pamphlet lending clarity to the raging debate about the alleged "sacred" right to guns enshrined in the U.S. Constitution's 2nd Amendment.

I share it here because it supports my deeply held conviction that heeding indigenous wisdom about how to live is imperative if human beings are to continue as a form of life on this planet.


Created by Christine Nobiss with art by Jackie Fawn, the pamphlet is based on a new book from scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. Published by City Lights Books in San Francisco, the new book is available here. Dunbar-Ortiz' award-winning An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, published in 2015, is one of the most horrifying books I have ever read -- a careful documentation of attempted genocide.

The Second Amendment 

A Sacred Covenant of Ethnic Cleansing and Slavery Between the Nation State and Settler Militias 

There is a myth that has infiltrated the core of the American imagination. It is the belief that the Second Amendment is a result of the Revolutionary War, thus, a right to self-defense and to protect the country from any enemies that might arise. It is also believed that if the government fails to protect its citizens, the citizens have the right to revolt. However, the historical context that led to the creation of the Second Amendment is actually based on the process of land annexation and the mitigation of local populations through assimilation, genocide or slavery‐‐much of which took place at the point of a gun. The colonists that built this country ousted the British for many reasons, but fundamentally, “what colonists considered oppressive was any restriction that British authorities put on them in regard to obtaining land.” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 24) 

The Second Amendment is actually a sacred religiopolitical covenant between the Nation State and the settlers of this continent that recognizes the fundamental ideology of land expansion through ethnic cleansing and slavery. It is nothing more than recognition that this country was founded on the actions of generations of Europeans with a maniacal lust for Indian killing and the control of Black people. Men were expected to bear arms (at one point it was the law) in order to protect themselves, their families, the State and the process of westward expansion. In essence, extreme violence was a god given right and an obligation of the average “citizen” that took on the singular role of a vigilante and that formed into small groups that cleared the way for the rise of the American government. The average citizen was a raider, a ranger, a frontiersmen, a marauder, a pirate and the average colony was a settler militia, an armed household, and a slave patrol. 

The Nation State did not create the Second Amendment to protect its citizens from invasion but to allow its citizens to invade. It is written permission to continue on with the doctrine of discovery, manifest destiny, westward expansion, i.e., the work of the white supremacist. As Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes, “The astronomical number of firearms owned by US civilians, with the Second Amendment considered a sacred mandate, is also intricately related to militaristic culture and white nationalism. The militias referred to in the second amendment were intended as a means for white people to eliminate Indigenous communities in order to take their land, and for slave patrols to control Black people.” (Dunbar-Ortiz, 57) 

This violent approach to Indigenous and Black populations is still practiced in current day American society. For instance, Native Americans have the highest police murder rate per ethnic group in the country and the vast majority of these deaths are through the use of a firearm. According to a CNN review of the Center for Diseases Control, “for every 1 million Native Americans, an average of 2.9 of them died annually from 1999 to 2015 as a result of a legal intervention”. For the Black population the number is 2.6, for the Latinx it is 1.7, for Whites it is 0.9 and for Asians it is 0.6. This is a startling statistic because Native Americans only make up 0.9% of the population. However, these deaths are probably under reported just like the other epidemics that Native Americans face, such as missing and murdered women, abuse, rape, stalking, runaway children and violence committed by non-tribal members. According to Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center, “The data available likely does not capture all Native American deaths in police encounters due to people of mixed race and a relatively large homeless population that is not on the grid." 

The notion that there is a rise in gun violence in this country is actually a misunderstanding of history. There was just a period in time in the late 19th and early 20th century where guns were not essential for the coercive control of brown people as the government had created reservation internment camps and implemented Jim Crow laws to segregate “problem populations”. However, the rise of the NRA, gun lobbying and the mass production of automatic weapons tied to a long held gun fetish in the American imagination has given white supremacists updated permission to dust off their ancestors weapon of choice and reenact the violence that this country was founded upon. America is a young country and lacks a distinct culture of its own, but one thing is certain--Americans covet their sacred right to free real estate, cheap labor and the gun, thus, the Second Amendment is but permission to steal, kill and dominate in order to fulfill this expectation. 

For more information on Native Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter and to challenge racial and economic injustice go to the Equal Justice Initiative at eji.org 

To demand that our lives and safety become a priority and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our society, go to csgv.org, marchforourlives.com, sandyhookpromise.org or momsdemandaction.org

Much of the information in this publication was inspired by the words of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, in her recent book Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2018. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is the author of many books, including An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States. Her body of work is held in high esteem by the women of Seeding Sovereignty for its integrity, honesty and academic activism.

Shut Down Firing Ranges In U.S. Public Schools #Parkland #Enough

The Parkland shooter Nik Cruz was taught to fire an assault rifle at school.

Let me repeat that.

Nik Cruz, who murdered 17 people at the high school that expelled him, was taught at school to fire the weapon he used. That's because his Junior ROTC program had a firing range that he used at age 14 to learn to be an excellent murderer.

Most every state in the U.S. has JROTC infesting its schools, and many of these programs have firing ranges.

This is in schools that lack current textbooks, or enough staff to keep math class sizes below 40 students. This is in schools that offer academic credit for courses taught by uncertified instructors, courses that teach a warped view of war history (for example, that the Gulf of Tonkin incident actually occurred). In the U.S., our spending priorities indicate our moral priorities.

In Maine where I live there appear to be four schools with Army JROTC marksmanship programs: Bangor HS, Hermon HS, Old Town HS and Sacoppee Valley HS.

I need to do some research to find out the details, but these are the four schools listed in my state in the database maintained by the Civilian Marksmanship Program Tracker.

Pat Elder has worked for years opposing the militarization of youth. He wrote this month for Common Dreams:

Militarism is deeply entrenched in the American experience. The depth of military indoctrination in this country separates us from the rest of the world. Militarism is a powerful root cause behind America’s gun violence epidemic. It’s time to connect the dots.

His dream for a win in the wake of Parkland: close down JROTC programs everywhere.

Start with closing firing ranges in our public schools.

Thanks, Pat, for the communication tool and the information base I'm sharing in this blog post. Let's make this happen!

Please sign the petition to shut down firing ranges in our schools! Your message will be sent to your state legislators.

In case any right wingers want to Photoshop a picture of me shredding the Constitution

as they have targeted Emma Gonzalez with a fake photo based on a real one of her ripping up a paper target, I'll make it easy for you.

I'm a big fan of our Constitution. I'm  only interested in shredding the 2nd Amendment.

Black Lives > Your Guns, And Other Signs Of The Times #DisarmPolice

Yup, Maine Legislature, that's you they're talking about. Image courtesy of LumenARRT!

As reported by NewsCenter Maine in Augusta last night:

"Maine itself has a lot of trouble with passing laws that make guns safe," said Anita Clearfield, a member of LumenARRT!

"The legislators are afraid to do that.

You can see by their ratings with the NRA who's got an A plus rating, to know who's voted."

Most of the 400 or so who gathered with my family in Waterville yesterday were students, teachers or those who love them. You could guess who the writing teachers were.

My sister Hope proudly copied her math-ish sign from one in Washington DC before we headed to our local march. Here she is with Mindy Bergeron-Lawrence, local reproductive rights activist.

Photo: Roger Leisner, Maine Paparazzi

My husband, Mark Roman, a former NRA member who turned against the gun lobby as they became increasingly belligerent and dangerous, created a sign targeting what he sees as a big part of the problem:

Some other notable signs of the times in central Maine:

The problem is, until you solve this problem, we've still got a big problem:

Maine's capitol lit up by LumenARRT! last night

Yesterday in Waterville I listened to a teacher of the year, a principal, and a former student who's now a teacher, bear witness to how frightened kids are today, and how traumatic it is to have lockdowns, lockouts, and shooter drills in school.

Oh, and the biggest roar from yesterday's crowd ? When a speaker said:

Arming teachers is a very bad idea. 

(Music teacher Shannon Thurston also got a big response when she noted that school budgets don't even have adequate funding for tissues.)

I was gratified to hear reference to the mammoth violence budget of the Pentagon as part of the problem, despite the fact that the event was a thinly veiled Democratic Party get-out-the-vote effort. 

I also appreciated a minister who noted  my sign referencing the latest egregious killing by police of an unarmed black man, father of two Stephon Clark.

Powerful moment. Stephon Clark's brother comes face to face with police officers at the protest downtown. "20 times," he says to each of them #StephonClark pic.twitter.com/vSe4S3JhFr

— Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) March 24, 2018

That reminds me of the best article I read yesterday: An Incomplete List of Things Black People Should Avoid Doing So They Won't Be Killed by Police by Michael Herriot in The Root. It's bitterly funny in style but is also a catalog of the many, many men and women gunned down by police who have no business carrying guns.

I lived in Tokyo for four years. Shortly after I arrived there, I saw a drunk man screaming in the face of a stoic police officer as I walked through a park near my apartment. Some impressive de-escalation skills were on display. I kept expecting the cop to clock the guy but it never happened.

There was no danger that the cop would shoot the aggressive man, because police in Tokyo were armed with bicycles and flashlights, not guns.


I may have been the only one in Waterville yesterday with a sign calling to disarm police, but then it was a very white crowd. Many people agree with me that armed police are part of the problem -- not part of the solution.

neither of these statistics are ok. this post is not to say one of these is more traumatic than the other but to put things into perspective and draw attention to the overall misuse of guns and power in this country. #MarchForOurLives #DisarmPolice pic.twitter.com/xeeUYNhHZ7

— Solidarity Cville (@SolidCville) March 25, 2018