A White Supremacist Nation Is Not And Cannot Ever Be Great

Portland, Maine May 31, 2020 photo credit: Kelly F. Merrill

A white supremacist country is not and can never be great.

Our tax dollars are spent on vast amounts of weaponry and violent crowd control technology and equipment every year; this year we learned what weak investments were made to provide for a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the disease began to spread in the US, mass shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) have resulted in health care providers working for months now with inadequate protection, and a mere fraction of the population being tested due to shortages of items as basic as nasal swabs.

People are fed up with unaccountable policing that targets Black men, women, and children and deals out injury and death without meaningful consequences. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in all 50 states in cities including but not limited to Minneapolis, New York City, Portland (both Oregon and Maine), Louisville, Austin, Dallas, and Flint. Mostly peaceful protests have been plagued by agents provocateurs committing acts of property damage, and marred by police employing tanks, drones, and shooting at residents on their own front porches. Journalists have particularly been targeted -- shot at and arrested -- while attempting to do their jobs.

Portland, Maine May 31, 2020 photo credit: Kelly F. Merrill

Meanwhile, the President who failed to contain the pandemic is tweeting inflammatory messages intended as stochastic violence. That is, cueing his white supremacist followers to attack protesters and escalate nonviolent protests to violent ones.

It is possible to imagine that a President facing an election he seems destined to lose would see fomenting civil war as a way out of the necessity of holding elections in November.

It is clear that community control of police is imperative if the US is to heal and move forward. 

It is unclear what National Guard soldiers think they are doing when they follow orders to attack Americans at their own homes. The Posse Comitatus Act made it illegal to use the US military against the American people. It is clear that the President is often confused about the provisions of the Constitution he swore to uphold. Recently he accused the private company Twitter of violating the 1st amendment which guarantees the right to protected political speech among other rights, exhibiting a misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights' function to protect our rights from encroachment by government.

A white supremacist nation is not and cannot ever be great.

Portland Maine May 31, 2020 photo credit: Kelly F. Merrill

I am calling on Congress to either return to Washington DC or begin working remotely, immediately, to address the vacuum of leadership during these dangerous times.

I am calling on the legislature in my state to invest in anti-racist education preK-12 to be delivered remotely starting as soon as possible. This urgent need cannot wait until regular school programming begins in the fall. Only education can address the racist assumptions and misconceptions at the heart of rampant police violence against people of color.

I am calling on the governor in my state to include an indigenous (non-immigrant) Black person, that is, someone descended from African slaves kidnapped and brought to America, in every decision making body under her jurisdiction. This includes committees charged with recommending policies for economic recovery, education, policing, housing, food production and distribution and, especially, health care policy.

The disproportionate number of Black people who are arrested, tried, and incarcerated in Maine as compared with their presence in the population speaks for itself -- the problem is here, it is us. The disproportionate rate of infection and death among Black people from the COVID-19 disease here in Maine is further evidence of a racist economy, and a racist health care system.

Portland, Maine  May 31, 2020  photo credit: Kelly F. Merrill

Our budget priorities are racist, our criminal justice system is racist, our education system is racist, and our health care system is racist.

A white supremacist state is not and cannot ever be great.

US Senate Candidate Lisa Savage Covid- 19 Response Plan

Source: Tomas Poyao

Today Lisa Savage, independent Green candidate in Maine's 2020 ranked choice voting US Senate race, issued the following statement regarding the coronavirus pandemic:

The spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus) is a challenge to us as a society. It is already exposing deep failures in our political and economic system, including the moral abomination of a pay-or-die healthcare system, the refusal by political leaders to heed scientists’ warnings with policies to protect the public, and a precarious economy that leaves too many working people vulnerable to illness and economic ruin. For our society to overcome a pandemic in this unprepared state, we must meet it with collective will.

With accurate information, plus care and attention, we can control the spread of the disease and mitigate its effects. We cannot expect to continue our lives as normal in the coming days and weeks, but if we alter our behavior now for a short while, we may be able to avoid radically altering our behavior for a long period of time.

The most difficult aspect to controlling the disease is that those who carry it may not show any symptoms for as long as 14 days. That’s why it’s vital for us to pause, assess who has the disease as they begin to show symptoms, and then treat those people in isolated settings.

In order to accomplish this, we must take a series of actions at the local, state, and federal levels and we must take them quickly:


Testing: The federal government must partner with state governors to immediately commit resources to testing kits that can be deployed to every corner of the United States as quickly as possible. There is no higher priority. We must have roadside testing at travel chokepoints and sidewalk testing on city streets, in addition to tests at hospitals and health care facilities.

Health care: We must enroll everyone without health insurance immediately in some kind of Medicare plan, hiring displaced workers as fast as possible to process virtual paperwork. 
Coronavirus testing and treatment must be provided without individual cost.



Travel: We must suspend all non-essential travel and greatly restrict people’s non-essential movement. People should be encouraged to stay local and certain areas may have to be quarantined with enforcement.

Stimulus: We must pass emergency legislation that suspends rent and mortgage collection in quarantined and restricted areas and subsidizes those companies manufacturing items that are essential to daily social life so that they radically lower their prices. We need to institute a temporary universal basic income that would allow for purchase of food and necessities.


This may require something on the order of 1% of GDP, or $190 billion. The $1.5 trillion recently injected into the markets is a clear indication that there is no shortage of resources for this kind of stimulus package.

Military: As quickly as possible, military forces must be converted into humanitarian forces, distributing necessities, doing wellness checks, conducting testing, etc. Bring as many as possible home from overseas.

Social Services: We must immediately not only cancel SNAP restrictions, but we must extend SNAP liberally alongside and as part of the universal basic income. We will have to create food distribution systems to address food insecurity that will be worsened by disruption of supply lines. A moratorium on evictions will ensure housing security for low income people and families.

Utilities: People must receive subsidies to pay for their power, water, and heating oil/propane, etc., so that no one experiences loss of power, water, or heat.

Taxation: Corporate wealth must be taxed for the purpose of fighting the spread of Covid-19, which they can pay in in-kind donations. The Internal Revenue Service must be tasked with rapidly cataloging contributions and Tax Day for 2020 must be delayed at least six months.

Foreign Policy: The time for inter-country brinksmanship and adversarial saber-rattling is over. Sanctions must be lifted to ensure the free flow of humanitarian aid and supplies around the globe. Anywhere this virus continues to thrive represents a threat to global health, including to those of us here in the United States. We must partner with countries around the world to create the most efficient system possible for creating a vaccine and other treatments and administering them as quickly as possible.

Prisons: Incarcerated people are particularly at risk of contracting communicable diseases. Both the federal government and the states should immediately release nonviolent offenders and incarcerated people whose age or health puts them at high risk, including the many low-income people who are currently incarcerated because of their inability to pay a fine or post bail. Further, we must provide these people with the means to house and feed themselves, along with health care.

 Source: Lisa for Maine.org