Posts
The mid-term elections are over. After months of campaigning and disruption of their lives, candidates can go back to the normalcy of their everyday routines. With voter turnout approaching 60 percent in Maine, our state once more showed our greater engagement in all things political.
Contributing to the higher than normal turnout for a non-presidential election was the TABOR initiative, Maine's "slash and burn" attempt at tax relief, which went down to defeat, 54 to 46 percent. This is the second sound defeat of a taxpayer "rights" referendum by Mainers, but knowing some of the ideologically-driven leaders of the pro-TABOR side, I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar in two years, when we vote again.
The day after an election can be a bit of letdown, particularly when your candidate finishes a distant fourth. Pat LaMarche ran a grassroots, issue-oriented campaign, championing healthcare for all Mainers, an emphasis on a living wage for all workers, a commitment to renewable energy and some positive proposals for getting a handle on escalating property taxes.
As a Green Independent, LaMarche offered a clear, third party alternative to the traditional choice between elephant and donkey. LaMarche's female counterpart, the perpetually "catty" Barbara Merrill made a strong showing, gathering 20 plus percent of the total vote. As she conceded, however, she managed to show her less than gracious side, once more, which is what ultimately led to me go over to the LaMarche camp, late in the race. It is my sincere hope that Pat, gracious and genuine to the very end, will remain engaged in the political process. We need her ideas, energy and passion for all the people of Maine, not just the ones who drive luxury sedans and SUV's.
Maine faces a multitude of challenges. Governor Baldacci cannot allow his final four years to be business as usual. The Brookings Institute report has given anyone in a leadership position, a clear blueprint for taking our state forward, into the 21st century. Partisan posturing and political cronyism won't get the job done for the people of Maine.
Nationally, it appears that Democrats have been given a clear message from the voters--they are fed up with perpetual war, fear mongering, political scandal and ideological divisiveness. Regaining control of the House for the first time since 1994, Democrats must step up to the plate and lead.
As votes were counted last night, it became clear that Republicans had lost their hold on power across the country. In distrcts of all stripes--conservative, liberal and moderate — as well as in urban, rural and suburban areas, exit polls revealed that many middle class voters who fled to the GOP a dozen years ago appeared to return to the Democrats.
With this so-called mandate, the Democrats, or "the gang that couldn't shoot straight," now have a responsibility to address some of the most serious issues in our nation, including finding a way to unite a divided populace. For me, I saw several races, won by conservative Democrats, as offering very little substantive difference between them and the GOP incumbent. Joe Lieberman, who lost the primary to anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont, won as an Independent.
Will we see a troop pullout from Iraq, a push for universal healthcare, a closing of the income gap and a push to develop alternative energy sources? The pessimist in me says Democratic control of the House and even the Senate, won't alter business as usual.
As I've been preaching regularly here, during the latter days of the campaigning, our electoral process needs an overhaul. Until third party candidates, fueled by ideas rather than ideology can get into the game in a meaningful way, little if nothing will change for the working class people of our land. Obscene amounts of money, sent down from the corporate suites have poisoned our political well. Until we find the will to tap into the well of populist reform, I don't harbor any real hope that anything meaningful will result from all the hoopla surrounding last night's election returns.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Monday, November 06, 2006
Let the women lead
While politics as usual most often means white males mouthing the same old rhetoric, Maine’s gubernatorial race has been energized by two dynamic women, as candidates. Both Pat LaMarche and Barbara Merrill have given incumbent John Baldacci and Republican challenger, Chandler Woodcock, much more than I’m sure they bargained for.
Both LaMarche and Merrill have run issue-oriented campaigns that have given Mainers an opportunity, if they so choose, to vote against the tired and trite and choose a direction for the state that is actually grounded in issues that matter. With LaMarche’s focus on healthcare, the environment, job creation and a way to realistically address tax issues, she offers a clear choice for anyone who cares to go beyond the sound bite campaigns offered by her male counterparts.
Merrill literally has written the book on how she would govern Maine. Like Maine’s last Independent for governor, Angus King, Merrill put pen to paper and wrote, Setting the Maine Course, which is also available on her website.
Merrill’s strong commitment to the rural values of Maine, should resound solidly with much of Maine, although I’m concerned that too many of them will take the easy road and cast their vote for Chandler Woodcock, making the false assumption that a Republican cares about the working class citizens of rural Maine. His support for TABOR should be a clear indication that he doesn’t, as this “slash and burn” attack on the rural communities of Maine will devastate services to the people who need them most.
While I wrote an earlier post about leaning LaMarche’s way, I’ve now made my choice to vote for Pat. Having said that, I respect Merrill and would be comfortable with her as governor, if LaMarche doesn’t come out victorious after the votes are counted Tuesday night.
For those who are still wavering, I’d encourage you to visit Jason Clarke and Lance Dutson’s excellent podcast site, Maine Impact, where you can listen to interviews with both of these talented and intelligent women, who would both make great choices to lead the state of Maine.
Both LaMarche and Merrill have run issue-oriented campaigns that have given Mainers an opportunity, if they so choose, to vote against the tired and trite and choose a direction for the state that is actually grounded in issues that matter. With LaMarche’s focus on healthcare, the environment, job creation and a way to realistically address tax issues, she offers a clear choice for anyone who cares to go beyond the sound bite campaigns offered by her male counterparts.
Merrill literally has written the book on how she would govern Maine. Like Maine’s last Independent for governor, Angus King, Merrill put pen to paper and wrote, Setting the Maine Course, which is also available on her website.
Merrill’s strong commitment to the rural values of Maine, should resound solidly with much of Maine, although I’m concerned that too many of them will take the easy road and cast their vote for Chandler Woodcock, making the false assumption that a Republican cares about the working class citizens of rural Maine. His support for TABOR should be a clear indication that he doesn’t, as this “slash and burn” attack on the rural communities of Maine will devastate services to the people who need them most.
While I wrote an earlier post about leaning LaMarche’s way, I’ve now made my choice to vote for Pat. Having said that, I respect Merrill and would be comfortable with her as governor, if LaMarche doesn’t come out victorious after the votes are counted Tuesday night.
For those who are still wavering, I’d encourage you to visit Jason Clarke and Lance Dutson’s excellent podcast site, Maine Impact, where you can listen to interviews with both of these talented and intelligent women, who would both make great choices to lead the state of Maine.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Democracy's death rattle
We are in another election period. Three days from now, some of us will march to the polls and cast our votes, hopeful that they’ll even be counted correctly. That, in itself, is problematic. In my own state of Maine, the secretary of state is predicting a voter turnout of somewhere in the range of 45 to 55 percent—this during a crucial midterm election at the national level, with Maine choosing a governor, local representatives to Augusta and determining whether or not we care to gut our public services by passing TABOR, the “slash and burn” attempt at controlling taxes, given to us courtesy of our friends on the right-wing fringe.
Our current president, a man who won two elections under dubious voting circumstances, fraught with polling irregularities, spends a lot of time talking about democracy, his focus often on other parts of the world to the exclusion of his own banana republic. In a country that some would hold up as the shining “city on a hill” when it comes to how representative government should work, half of us don’t vote, with a good portion of the other 50 percent not sure that Tuesday’s process will be legitimate. As Jeffrey Kopstein and Mark Lipback write, in their book, Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities and Institutions in a Changing Global Order,
“Democracies sometimes violate their own laws or conduct elections that are not perfectly free and fair. Beyond a certain point, however, it makes little sense to categorize a country as democratic if it prohibits free speech or falsifies election
results.”
Back in 2004, those who did vote (or could vote), regardless of the candidate you voted for (or thought you voted for), the election didn’t seem right. After four years of fractious rankling and with an unpopular war raging in Iraq, Americans went to the polls, with pundits insisting that voters were determined to express their dissatisfaction with Bush and the Republicans. Strangely, the usually discombobulated Democrats, the “gang who couldn’t shoot straight,” as I like to call them, were strangely unified. They’d united around the “electable” candidate, the former Vietnam veteran and longtime Senator, John Kerry, and urged everyone within earshot that we should vote for “anybody but Bush.” Even the perennial third party rabble-rouser, Ralph Nader, garnered almost no support (0.38 percent of the national vote), yet, when the smoke settled and the votes were counted (or not counted), George W. Bush was standing tall, reelected as our 43rd president. In fact, unlike the chad-shrouded election of 2000, this one wasn’t even close, with GWB winning with a 3 million vote cushion.
Strangely, despite voters being forced to stand in line for hours in Ohio, polls closing before voters got to vote, exit polls favoring Kerry (in Ohio) turned on their heads, there was very little national attention focused on the specter that the 2004 election, like the 2000 election, was stolen. Other than a few lone voices like Mark Crispin Miller, Keith Olbermann and even Randi Rhodes, of Air America, most of the media moved on, ready to talk about Republican mandates and Mr. Bush’s conservative capital to spend. In fact, Mr. Bush, one of the more intellectually challenged presidents to ever hold office, began running about the country, as well as at the mouth, insisting that the voters had given him a clear message that his disastrous “war on terrah,” civil liberty infringements and wealth transfer programs were wildly popular.
So, what’s the answer? To be quite honest, I don’t really have one. As person who no longer has faith in the tired ideal of, “one person, one vote,” I’ll go to the polls, more out of conditioning than any great optimism. I’ll cast my vote and then, I’ll come home and watch the returns stream in. I’ll tolerate the prattle from tired commentators, rattling off results from states like Oregon, Montana and Utah. They’ll gush about certain “stars” of the political pantheon and devote some coverage to key races, but absent from any of their corporately-controlled patter, will be a mention that the whole goddamn system is fucked beyond our control!
Just this past week, John Kerry, the man I voted for in 2004, made a comment about Iraq that put him in a world of hurt, or as Bobby Boucher (from The Waterboy) would say, he opened up “a can of whupass.” I don't dislike John Kerry. Oh, at times, he pisses me off, with his air of nobility and, like Al Gore, his penchant for letting political handlers so obscure the real candidate that both of these decent men, come off as totally inept and ultimately, ineffective.
Kerry dared to make a statement before college students in Southern California that got characterized later, as a bad joke. What got missed by everyone, except good ole’ Keith Olbermann, a former sportscaster from ESPN, was that Kerry, in essence, was calling the president, stupid (Christ, there's a new revelation). Instead, the Bush sycophants and members of the press (are those two one and the same?), turned Kerry’s statement into a case of insult against our good boys in Iraq. Before all was said and done, Kerry, regardless of how you feel about him as presidential material, a man of honor and integrity, ended up having to “fall on his sword” at the insistence of the spineless Democrats in control, virtually extinguishing any hopes of a presidential run for himself, in 2008. Kerry, who guided men through battle and then had the integrity to come home and take a stand for veterans, which, as a child of privilege, would have been easy to have shirked, ends up looking like the lesser of a person in another head-to-head with George W. Bush.
I cannot explain how a man, with obvious pathological predispositions towards dishonesty, who never served a day in combat, in fact, criminally left his responsibilities to occupy a politically-arranged substitute for real service, continues to be given a free pass? Either the American people are too stupid, too callow, or they don’t have what it takes to live in a country that was intended to be a democracy.
While conservatives love to quibble over definitions, insisting our nation is actually a "constitutional republic," we are in fact, a democracy, a representative one, evident in each one of our various branches. Maybe that aversion to the term among conservatives is somewhat instructive? By denying the term, but even more important, by denying the mechanisms, the current conservative clusterfuck is doing all in its power to deny the very foundations and underpinnings that date back over 200 years.
Unlike many progressives and left-leaning hipsters, I don’t entertain any illusions that a Democratic majority in the House, or Senate, or both, is going to change the collision course that America is on. The Democrats aren’t going to overhaul the tax code, or suddenly defund the military, or enact anything close to the radical changes (universal healthcare) that would make me happy. However, just a slight swerve back to the center would be a cool drop of water for even a cynical left-leaning libertarian, like me. It would halt this continual rightward, theocratic stumble towards fascism that we are on and if nothing else, gives me some slight glimmer of hope that we might rid ourselves, eventually, of some of the loathsome bottom-feeders that we are currently saddled with in Washington.
Driving home last night, I was listening to NPR and heard a story about the D-word subject that I’ve gone on about much longer than I intended. The theme of the piece was the U.S. policy of promoting democracy around the world, particularly in Arab countries and whether or not these countries are well-served with democratic forms of government. In fact, it was quite interesting when they talked about Hamas, recently brought to power in Palestine, in a democratically-held election. The reporter made the point that while we want democracy in other parts of the world, we are disappointed when a leader, or in the case of Hamas, a party is a elected that we don’t want—the wrong candidate, so to speak. Ironically, one of the so-called “experts” that they talked to was none other than Newt Gingrich, which ultimately led me to ranting like a crazy man at my radio and ultimately, shoving in my mix tape of Centro-matic to prevent my head from exploding.
Come Tuesday, I’ll drag myself to my Durham polling station. I’ll vote for governor, against TABOR, choose my local representatives, as well as senator and representative to Washington. We actually still have paper ballots that you feed into a machine on your way out, which will be counted by one of my fellow townspeople. My wife, Mary, has counted on election night before. If nothing else, I can at least be assured that my vote is counted, which won’t be the case in many other parts of the country. You see, if you are voting on a Diebold machine, or one of the four machines owned by rabid, right-wing Republicans, which leave no paper trail, then you can’t be sure that the vote you cast is actually counted for the candidate you chose.
Since those who count the votes, ultimately are the ones who win, then Republicans have a real advantage, at the present time. If Democrats can do nothing more than regain control of the House and Senate, they’ll be able to feel good on Tuesday night. Simply being able to fix the broken system of elections that exist right here in our own country will be one huge step back towards legitimacy. Then, I can start wishing again, for something miraculous, like instant runoff voting, or god forbid, a viable movement to elect a third party candidate that represented the needs of all Americans, not just the wealthy. Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?
Our current president, a man who won two elections under dubious voting circumstances, fraught with polling irregularities, spends a lot of time talking about democracy, his focus often on other parts of the world to the exclusion of his own banana republic. In a country that some would hold up as the shining “city on a hill” when it comes to how representative government should work, half of us don’t vote, with a good portion of the other 50 percent not sure that Tuesday’s process will be legitimate. As Jeffrey Kopstein and Mark Lipback write, in their book, Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities and Institutions in a Changing Global Order,
“Democracies sometimes violate their own laws or conduct elections that are not perfectly free and fair. Beyond a certain point, however, it makes little sense to categorize a country as democratic if it prohibits free speech or falsifies election
results.”
Back in 2004, those who did vote (or could vote), regardless of the candidate you voted for (or thought you voted for), the election didn’t seem right. After four years of fractious rankling and with an unpopular war raging in Iraq, Americans went to the polls, with pundits insisting that voters were determined to express their dissatisfaction with Bush and the Republicans. Strangely, the usually discombobulated Democrats, the “gang who couldn’t shoot straight,” as I like to call them, were strangely unified. They’d united around the “electable” candidate, the former Vietnam veteran and longtime Senator, John Kerry, and urged everyone within earshot that we should vote for “anybody but Bush.” Even the perennial third party rabble-rouser, Ralph Nader, garnered almost no support (0.38 percent of the national vote), yet, when the smoke settled and the votes were counted (or not counted), George W. Bush was standing tall, reelected as our 43rd president. In fact, unlike the chad-shrouded election of 2000, this one wasn’t even close, with GWB winning with a 3 million vote cushion.
Strangely, despite voters being forced to stand in line for hours in Ohio, polls closing before voters got to vote, exit polls favoring Kerry (in Ohio) turned on their heads, there was very little national attention focused on the specter that the 2004 election, like the 2000 election, was stolen. Other than a few lone voices like Mark Crispin Miller, Keith Olbermann and even Randi Rhodes, of Air America, most of the media moved on, ready to talk about Republican mandates and Mr. Bush’s conservative capital to spend. In fact, Mr. Bush, one of the more intellectually challenged presidents to ever hold office, began running about the country, as well as at the mouth, insisting that the voters had given him a clear message that his disastrous “war on terrah,” civil liberty infringements and wealth transfer programs were wildly popular.
So, what’s the answer? To be quite honest, I don’t really have one. As person who no longer has faith in the tired ideal of, “one person, one vote,” I’ll go to the polls, more out of conditioning than any great optimism. I’ll cast my vote and then, I’ll come home and watch the returns stream in. I’ll tolerate the prattle from tired commentators, rattling off results from states like Oregon, Montana and Utah. They’ll gush about certain “stars” of the political pantheon and devote some coverage to key races, but absent from any of their corporately-controlled patter, will be a mention that the whole goddamn system is fucked beyond our control!
Just this past week, John Kerry, the man I voted for in 2004, made a comment about Iraq that put him in a world of hurt, or as Bobby Boucher (from The Waterboy) would say, he opened up “a can of whupass.” I don't dislike John Kerry. Oh, at times, he pisses me off, with his air of nobility and, like Al Gore, his penchant for letting political handlers so obscure the real candidate that both of these decent men, come off as totally inept and ultimately, ineffective.
Kerry dared to make a statement before college students in Southern California that got characterized later, as a bad joke. What got missed by everyone, except good ole’ Keith Olbermann, a former sportscaster from ESPN, was that Kerry, in essence, was calling the president, stupid (Christ, there's a new revelation). Instead, the Bush sycophants and members of the press (are those two one and the same?), turned Kerry’s statement into a case of insult against our good boys in Iraq. Before all was said and done, Kerry, regardless of how you feel about him as presidential material, a man of honor and integrity, ended up having to “fall on his sword” at the insistence of the spineless Democrats in control, virtually extinguishing any hopes of a presidential run for himself, in 2008. Kerry, who guided men through battle and then had the integrity to come home and take a stand for veterans, which, as a child of privilege, would have been easy to have shirked, ends up looking like the lesser of a person in another head-to-head with George W. Bush.
I cannot explain how a man, with obvious pathological predispositions towards dishonesty, who never served a day in combat, in fact, criminally left his responsibilities to occupy a politically-arranged substitute for real service, continues to be given a free pass? Either the American people are too stupid, too callow, or they don’t have what it takes to live in a country that was intended to be a democracy.
While conservatives love to quibble over definitions, insisting our nation is actually a "constitutional republic," we are in fact, a democracy, a representative one, evident in each one of our various branches. Maybe that aversion to the term among conservatives is somewhat instructive? By denying the term, but even more important, by denying the mechanisms, the current conservative clusterfuck is doing all in its power to deny the very foundations and underpinnings that date back over 200 years.
Unlike many progressives and left-leaning hipsters, I don’t entertain any illusions that a Democratic majority in the House, or Senate, or both, is going to change the collision course that America is on. The Democrats aren’t going to overhaul the tax code, or suddenly defund the military, or enact anything close to the radical changes (universal healthcare) that would make me happy. However, just a slight swerve back to the center would be a cool drop of water for even a cynical left-leaning libertarian, like me. It would halt this continual rightward, theocratic stumble towards fascism that we are on and if nothing else, gives me some slight glimmer of hope that we might rid ourselves, eventually, of some of the loathsome bottom-feeders that we are currently saddled with in Washington.
Driving home last night, I was listening to NPR and heard a story about the D-word subject that I’ve gone on about much longer than I intended. The theme of the piece was the U.S. policy of promoting democracy around the world, particularly in Arab countries and whether or not these countries are well-served with democratic forms of government. In fact, it was quite interesting when they talked about Hamas, recently brought to power in Palestine, in a democratically-held election. The reporter made the point that while we want democracy in other parts of the world, we are disappointed when a leader, or in the case of Hamas, a party is a elected that we don’t want—the wrong candidate, so to speak. Ironically, one of the so-called “experts” that they talked to was none other than Newt Gingrich, which ultimately led me to ranting like a crazy man at my radio and ultimately, shoving in my mix tape of Centro-matic to prevent my head from exploding.
Come Tuesday, I’ll drag myself to my Durham polling station. I’ll vote for governor, against TABOR, choose my local representatives, as well as senator and representative to Washington. We actually still have paper ballots that you feed into a machine on your way out, which will be counted by one of my fellow townspeople. My wife, Mary, has counted on election night before. If nothing else, I can at least be assured that my vote is counted, which won’t be the case in many other parts of the country. You see, if you are voting on a Diebold machine, or one of the four machines owned by rabid, right-wing Republicans, which leave no paper trail, then you can’t be sure that the vote you cast is actually counted for the candidate you chose.
Since those who count the votes, ultimately are the ones who win, then Republicans have a real advantage, at the present time. If Democrats can do nothing more than regain control of the House and Senate, they’ll be able to feel good on Tuesday night. Simply being able to fix the broken system of elections that exist right here in our own country will be one huge step back towards legitimacy. Then, I can start wishing again, for something miraculous, like instant runoff voting, or god forbid, a viable movement to elect a third party candidate that represented the needs of all Americans, not just the wealthy. Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?
Thursday, November 02, 2006
The future is suddenly a bit brighter
Political season makes me kinda’ crazy. It’s not that I don’t enjoy debating the issues and that I don’t understand some of the political machinations. More and more, it’s just the lack of rationale discussion and clear-headed give and take that brings me down.
Occasionally, wading through the forest and swamps of talk radio and right-leaning electioneers, a ray of light manages to peak through the fog of fear and ideology. When that glimmer of hope emanates from someone still finding their way in life, setting down their own roots and values, makes it even sweeter.
Back in 2000, two skinny 16-year olds were the final cuts from that spring’s Greely varsity baseball squad. One of them was my son Mark and the other one, Brent Lemieux, became fast friends. I had the privilege of watching their baseball developments, from JV stalwarts, to varsity co-captains their senior year, with both exhibiting traits that would later serve them well in their college baseball careers.
After being teammates for four years at Greely, they went their separate ways during college; Mark at Wheaton and Brent roaming the outfield for USM’s Huskies. Some of my fondest memories were seeing them reunited for three summers, when I coached them in Portland’s Twilight League.
On Wednesday morning, I opened Portland’s Press Herald, Maine’s largest daily newspaper and lo and behold, Brent’s op ed jumped out at me. I shouted out to my wife, “Brent’s op ed is in the newspaper.” Best of all, it addressed articulately, TABOR, the right-wing “slash and burn” attempt to gut social and community services in our state, all in the name of further tax relief for Maine’s wealthy.
As I read the op ed, I was impressed with Brent’s clear and concise approach at presenting his take on TABOR, exhibiting the critical thinking skills that seem to be lacking in so many of my fellow citizens.
Of course, the comments that accompanied it were primarily from right-wing trolls who somehow think that all societal ills will magically disappear if we just eliminate evil government and slash everyone's taxes.
One comment summed up my thoughts, as I angrily scanned some of the vitriol aimed at a fine 22-year-old young man who hasn’t had his own well poisoned by cynicism and political n’er-do-wells.
A commenter named Howard had this to say to much of the drivel that one could politely deem comments.
“After reading comments in these columns for some time I've come to a few conclusions. A great many conservatives memorize two or three pet phrases and use them continuosly in defending their point of view. Usually these are from the Heritage Center handouts or from some television ad. Certainly they don't look into an issue in depth.
Some of the TABOR supporters who can debate the merits of the issue at least have my respect for speaking intelligently.
Some of these other "Adults" merely resort to name calling when they can't win any other way. Did you people have parents? Or were they too busy making money to teach you common sense and values?
You folks are really the right wing equivelant of our now infamous Halloween protestor. Maybe you slept through school but you need to know that name calling proves nothing. The young man who wrote this article made several good points. Don't condemn him because you folks don't have the ability to respond intelligently. I can assure you that I pay my share of taxes to, which isn't easy these days, and I agree with him on some points.
TABOR is not an answer to our problems. The answer in a nutshell is learning to run our governments more efficiently and use good business practices at all levels. TABOR won't do that at all. "
I’m proud of this young man and count myself privileged to have had an opportunity to witness his intellectual growth and maturity, as well as enjoying watching him on the baseball field.
I’m printing his op ed in its entirety, because it is one of best and most well-reasoned pieces I’ve read on TABOR.
I realize that the future of our state and our country is in the hands of these young men and women and maybe we’d do well to step aside and let them lead us, instead of continuously putting our hopes in the bunch of dried up, bitter and twisted old men we’ve hitched our wagons to up until now.
Portland Press Herald, Nov. 1, 2006
MAINE VOICES
TABOR no answer to Maine's problems
by, Brent Lemieux
The Press Herald's recent support for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights has me concerned that your editorial recommendation for its passage will affect the outcome of the vote on Election Day.
The paper claimed TABOR is the best next step in the right direction, but it feels more like a blind step in a direction that has yet to be determined.
I have to agree that the timing of the respectable lobbyists of the Maine Educational Association, the Maine Municipal Association and the state Chamber of Commerce in putting forth their alternative proposal is suspect. But I disagree with this sense of urgency that your paper and other supporters of TABOR are pushing to pressure voters to pass it.
TABOR is not the solution, and it's not Maine's best bet, no matter how impatient we become.
All the talk lately has been about Maine's tax burden. There has been relentless rhetoric on the topic of how Maine is the heaviest-taxed state in the country.
Where do these claims come from? Yes, taxes are high in Maine, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau we are the 19th-highest-taxed state in the nation, which is far from the first.
If you have been following TABOR at all, you have also heard about LD 1 and all its poor reviews. But, what we need to keep in mind is that LD 1 is young, being that it was only instituted in January 2005, and that it's going to take time to see significant results.
For those who are impatient, I'll mention that since LD 1, the state's annual growth rate of the local property tax has slowed to 1.6 percent, a far cry from the average annual increase over the past 20 years of 6.6 percent.
The main argument behind TABOR is that it will put more control into the hands of the people. But at what cost, and just how much is "more"?
According to TABOR, Maine citizens will vote on almost all financial issues concerning any level of government that exceed the law's spending cap, but only if the budget that does so is approved by a two-thirds majority from the governing body.
If only a third disagree, then the vote will never see the light of day. TABOR wouldn't be giving power into the hands of the public, it would be doing just the opposite, consolidating the power into a select few.
If TABOR did go into action and we did get to vote on every cap-exceeding financial issue, it would come at a cost. Our election officials estimate that an average voting session would cost a minimum of $25,000. We now have to forfeit 25 grand before anything actually gets done beyond the minimum. That just seems backwards to me.
It would be difficult to cut budgets in our cities and towns without neglecting the people. A decrease in spending for our towns would naturally lead to a decrease in town employment and lower levels of basic maintenance care.
Towns would have trouble scrounging up the money to repair cracked roads and sidewalks, old buildings including our schools and libraries, even community landfills that need maintenance care for sanitary reasons.
Just think, every time our town needed more money than the cap permitted to fund such public services that we now take for granted, it would need to hold a costly vote, forfeiting more time and money.
A spending cap would be more efficient if it was community-based and operated on a town-by-town level. This way each town could determine its own future and choose which projects were worth investing in and which were not.
Colorado, our nation's guinea pig in the TABOR experiment, has put a temporary ban on the bill because it isn't working. It's damaged their school systems and their infrastructure. They realize that adjustments needed to be made in order for it to work more efficiently.
The Press Herald appears to recognize this as well, claiming its flaws are fixable and urging us to support it.
So, are we supposed to vote for TABOR then identify its flaws and then fix them? Or, would a better path be to fix its flaws before putting it into effect?
- Special to the Press Herald
[Brent Lemieux (e-mail: brenton.lemieux@maine.edu) of Portland is a USM media studies student and freelance writer. ]
Occasionally, wading through the forest and swamps of talk radio and right-leaning electioneers, a ray of light manages to peak through the fog of fear and ideology. When that glimmer of hope emanates from someone still finding their way in life, setting down their own roots and values, makes it even sweeter.
Back in 2000, two skinny 16-year olds were the final cuts from that spring’s Greely varsity baseball squad. One of them was my son Mark and the other one, Brent Lemieux, became fast friends. I had the privilege of watching their baseball developments, from JV stalwarts, to varsity co-captains their senior year, with both exhibiting traits that would later serve them well in their college baseball careers.
After being teammates for four years at Greely, they went their separate ways during college; Mark at Wheaton and Brent roaming the outfield for USM’s Huskies. Some of my fondest memories were seeing them reunited for three summers, when I coached them in Portland’s Twilight League.
On Wednesday morning, I opened Portland’s Press Herald, Maine’s largest daily newspaper and lo and behold, Brent’s op ed jumped out at me. I shouted out to my wife, “Brent’s op ed is in the newspaper.” Best of all, it addressed articulately, TABOR, the right-wing “slash and burn” attempt to gut social and community services in our state, all in the name of further tax relief for Maine’s wealthy.
As I read the op ed, I was impressed with Brent’s clear and concise approach at presenting his take on TABOR, exhibiting the critical thinking skills that seem to be lacking in so many of my fellow citizens.
Of course, the comments that accompanied it were primarily from right-wing trolls who somehow think that all societal ills will magically disappear if we just eliminate evil government and slash everyone's taxes.
One comment summed up my thoughts, as I angrily scanned some of the vitriol aimed at a fine 22-year-old young man who hasn’t had his own well poisoned by cynicism and political n’er-do-wells.
A commenter named Howard had this to say to much of the drivel that one could politely deem comments.
“After reading comments in these columns for some time I've come to a few conclusions. A great many conservatives memorize two or three pet phrases and use them continuosly in defending their point of view. Usually these are from the Heritage Center handouts or from some television ad. Certainly they don't look into an issue in depth.
Some of the TABOR supporters who can debate the merits of the issue at least have my respect for speaking intelligently.
Some of these other "Adults" merely resort to name calling when they can't win any other way. Did you people have parents? Or were they too busy making money to teach you common sense and values?
You folks are really the right wing equivelant of our now infamous Halloween protestor. Maybe you slept through school but you need to know that name calling proves nothing. The young man who wrote this article made several good points. Don't condemn him because you folks don't have the ability to respond intelligently. I can assure you that I pay my share of taxes to, which isn't easy these days, and I agree with him on some points.
TABOR is not an answer to our problems. The answer in a nutshell is learning to run our governments more efficiently and use good business practices at all levels. TABOR won't do that at all. "
I’m proud of this young man and count myself privileged to have had an opportunity to witness his intellectual growth and maturity, as well as enjoying watching him on the baseball field.
I’m printing his op ed in its entirety, because it is one of best and most well-reasoned pieces I’ve read on TABOR.
I realize that the future of our state and our country is in the hands of these young men and women and maybe we’d do well to step aside and let them lead us, instead of continuously putting our hopes in the bunch of dried up, bitter and twisted old men we’ve hitched our wagons to up until now.
Portland Press Herald, Nov. 1, 2006
MAINE VOICES
TABOR no answer to Maine's problems
by, Brent Lemieux
The Press Herald's recent support for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights has me concerned that your editorial recommendation for its passage will affect the outcome of the vote on Election Day.
The paper claimed TABOR is the best next step in the right direction, but it feels more like a blind step in a direction that has yet to be determined.
I have to agree that the timing of the respectable lobbyists of the Maine Educational Association, the Maine Municipal Association and the state Chamber of Commerce in putting forth their alternative proposal is suspect. But I disagree with this sense of urgency that your paper and other supporters of TABOR are pushing to pressure voters to pass it.
TABOR is not the solution, and it's not Maine's best bet, no matter how impatient we become.
All the talk lately has been about Maine's tax burden. There has been relentless rhetoric on the topic of how Maine is the heaviest-taxed state in the country.
Where do these claims come from? Yes, taxes are high in Maine, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau we are the 19th-highest-taxed state in the nation, which is far from the first.
If you have been following TABOR at all, you have also heard about LD 1 and all its poor reviews. But, what we need to keep in mind is that LD 1 is young, being that it was only instituted in January 2005, and that it's going to take time to see significant results.
For those who are impatient, I'll mention that since LD 1, the state's annual growth rate of the local property tax has slowed to 1.6 percent, a far cry from the average annual increase over the past 20 years of 6.6 percent.
The main argument behind TABOR is that it will put more control into the hands of the people. But at what cost, and just how much is "more"?
According to TABOR, Maine citizens will vote on almost all financial issues concerning any level of government that exceed the law's spending cap, but only if the budget that does so is approved by a two-thirds majority from the governing body.
If only a third disagree, then the vote will never see the light of day. TABOR wouldn't be giving power into the hands of the public, it would be doing just the opposite, consolidating the power into a select few.
If TABOR did go into action and we did get to vote on every cap-exceeding financial issue, it would come at a cost. Our election officials estimate that an average voting session would cost a minimum of $25,000. We now have to forfeit 25 grand before anything actually gets done beyond the minimum. That just seems backwards to me.
It would be difficult to cut budgets in our cities and towns without neglecting the people. A decrease in spending for our towns would naturally lead to a decrease in town employment and lower levels of basic maintenance care.
Towns would have trouble scrounging up the money to repair cracked roads and sidewalks, old buildings including our schools and libraries, even community landfills that need maintenance care for sanitary reasons.
Just think, every time our town needed more money than the cap permitted to fund such public services that we now take for granted, it would need to hold a costly vote, forfeiting more time and money.
A spending cap would be more efficient if it was community-based and operated on a town-by-town level. This way each town could determine its own future and choose which projects were worth investing in and which were not.
Colorado, our nation's guinea pig in the TABOR experiment, has put a temporary ban on the bill because it isn't working. It's damaged their school systems and their infrastructure. They realize that adjustments needed to be made in order for it to work more efficiently.
The Press Herald appears to recognize this as well, claiming its flaws are fixable and urging us to support it.
So, are we supposed to vote for TABOR then identify its flaws and then fix them? Or, would a better path be to fix its flaws before putting it into effect?
- Special to the Press Herald
[Brent Lemieux (e-mail: brenton.lemieux@maine.edu) of Portland is a USM media studies student and freelance writer. ]
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Tom Connolly-Performance Artist
If you live in Maine, you've heard of Tom Connolly. Connolly, a prominent Democrat, defense lawyer, former gubernatorial candidate and the one who alerted local media to George W. Bush's 1976 drunk-driving conviction prior to the 2000 election, is no stranger to the spotlight. On Tuesday morning, he took it to a new level, engaging in guerilla theater, by donning an Osama Bin Laden costume, complete with assault rifle, while waving an anti-TABOR sign, during morning rush hour. You can imagine what happened--a motorist alerted the authorities and Connolly was arrested at gunpoint.
While I'll have more to add to this story, later this evening, here is a link to the video up at our local NBC affiliate, WCSH-6. (Click on the video link-you'll have to endure a short commercial, but be patient)
The simplistic reaction to the entire affair is the usual knee-jerk, which says Connolly was "stupid" for pulling this prank--in fact, that was exactly the word uttered by South Portland Police Chief, Ed Googins. However, there is more to this story that I hope to comment on later, when I'm not rushing out the door, in pursuit of mammon, or as the Marxists say, selling my labor.
*[Addendum added to above, at 7:15 pm]
I have no doubt that law and order types to a person will diverge with me on this. Their typical response would be that Connolly is “lucky he wasn’t shot,” which is implied in quotes from the South Portland police chief. Yet, does one automatically run the risk of mortal injury any time they venture out of the house with a toy gun? Has the societal shift over the past five years become so oriented towards force and firepower that police, when faced with a potentially volatile situation, always resort to deadly force? It was instructive to see the video clip, witnessing the officer, gun drawn, proceeding towards Connolly. Would a bullhorn, from a greater distance, ordering him to put down his toy, not been a better choice? Obviously, the noise from nearby I-295 was loud enough that Connolly did not hear the commands of the officer, which would account for the delay in actually laying the toy and his other props, aside.
Let me say, so my point is not misconstrued, that the officer in the video did exercise restraint. Obviously, we could be looking at an entirely different scenario if this public servant, who I'm assuming was someone with some law enforcement experience (not some "wet behind the ears" young buck just out of the criminal justice academy), had gone "Rambo" on Connolly. Can you imagine the reaction and subsequent condemnation that would have been showered on the police officer, if Connolly had been shot, or worse?
Was it obvious that Connolly was in fact dressed as Osama Bin Laden and was holding a gun, dynamite and grenades, or were the imaginations of drivers, police and others, over stimulated from a cultural reference point impregnated with 24/7 news coverage of the “war on terrah”? In fact, while Connolly was holding a sign that said, “I love TABOR,” a passing motorist thought the sign read, “I love the Taliban.” While recent reports clearly indicate some serious educational concerns around performance and perhaps the motorist couldn't read, but maybe, they misread “TABOR,” as “Taliban” due to media conditioning? I wonder how long Connolly would have been aloud to carry on if he was dressed as George Bush, holding a sign that read, "support our troops"?
I'm writing this purposefully ignorant of any local media attention this has received throughout the day. One of the things I'm attempting to do more of is formulate my thoughts and opinions, irrespective of "reaction" journalism. Even as I type, it's hard for me not to flick on the television and catch my local affiliate(s) reporting. In a state like Maine, believe me, this is a major news story.
Unlike many of my fellow U.S. citizens, I don't think the solution to crime is putting more police on the streets. Personally, as someone who has participated in several public demonstrations, involving political themes, more times than not, I've felt less safe in the presence of a law enforcement. Just recently, it was the law enforcement community, in fact, that had an integral role in the censorship of a university art display, by someone who identified themselves as a political prisoner. (In order to be "fair and balanced," here is the mainstream account--notice the headline?)
Our local communities would be better off if first, we identified the root causes of acts of criminal intent, if in fact we could all reach a consensus on what constitutes a crime. Secondly, we then would have to accept the responsibility that comes with that identification and find ways to engage all our fellow citizens in helping to make our communities places where uniformed officers, lethal force and protection of private property wasn't necessary. But of course that would be way too "utopian" for the average American to wrap their little law and order brains around. So instead, we assign the power of life and death to some of our flawed fellow citizens and wonder why 465 page reports detailing human rights violations are part of our reality (a reality that many would deny). As Chomsky has written, the "rabble must be instructed in the values of subordination and a narrow quest for personal gain within the parameters set by the institutions of the masters; meaningful democracy, with popular association and action, is a threat to be overcome." Let me go just a little further with my "egghead" reasoning and quote a little Murray Bookchin, and you tell me if those commuters passing Connolly on I-295, aren't apparent in the following quote:
"...the modern city is a virtual appendage of the capitalist workplace, being an outgrowth and essential counterpart of the factory (where "factory" means any enterprise in which surplus value is extracted from employees.) As such, cities are structured and administered primarily to serve the needs of the capitalist elite -- employers -- rather than the needs of the many -- their employees. From this standpoint, the city must be seen as (1) a transportation hub for importing raw materials and exporting finished products; and (2) a huge dormitory for wage slaves, conveniently locating them near the enterprises where their labor is to exploited, providing them with entertainment, clothing, medical facilities, etc. as well as coercive mechanisms for controlling their behavior. "
[The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship]
Connolly will be interviewed tomorrow morning on WGAN, AM-560, during their morning show. For those of us in its signal area, it should be worth tuning in to.
While I'll have more to add to this story, later this evening, here is a link to the video up at our local NBC affiliate, WCSH-6. (Click on the video link-you'll have to endure a short commercial, but be patient)
The simplistic reaction to the entire affair is the usual knee-jerk, which says Connolly was "stupid" for pulling this prank--in fact, that was exactly the word uttered by South Portland Police Chief, Ed Googins. However, there is more to this story that I hope to comment on later, when I'm not rushing out the door, in pursuit of mammon, or as the Marxists say, selling my labor.
*[Addendum added to above, at 7:15 pm]
I have no doubt that law and order types to a person will diverge with me on this. Their typical response would be that Connolly is “lucky he wasn’t shot,” which is implied in quotes from the South Portland police chief. Yet, does one automatically run the risk of mortal injury any time they venture out of the house with a toy gun? Has the societal shift over the past five years become so oriented towards force and firepower that police, when faced with a potentially volatile situation, always resort to deadly force? It was instructive to see the video clip, witnessing the officer, gun drawn, proceeding towards Connolly. Would a bullhorn, from a greater distance, ordering him to put down his toy, not been a better choice? Obviously, the noise from nearby I-295 was loud enough that Connolly did not hear the commands of the officer, which would account for the delay in actually laying the toy and his other props, aside.
Let me say, so my point is not misconstrued, that the officer in the video did exercise restraint. Obviously, we could be looking at an entirely different scenario if this public servant, who I'm assuming was someone with some law enforcement experience (not some "wet behind the ears" young buck just out of the criminal justice academy), had gone "Rambo" on Connolly. Can you imagine the reaction and subsequent condemnation that would have been showered on the police officer, if Connolly had been shot, or worse?
Was it obvious that Connolly was in fact dressed as Osama Bin Laden and was holding a gun, dynamite and grenades, or were the imaginations of drivers, police and others, over stimulated from a cultural reference point impregnated with 24/7 news coverage of the “war on terrah”? In fact, while Connolly was holding a sign that said, “I love TABOR,” a passing motorist thought the sign read, “I love the Taliban.” While recent reports clearly indicate some serious educational concerns around performance and perhaps the motorist couldn't read, but maybe, they misread “TABOR,” as “Taliban” due to media conditioning? I wonder how long Connolly would have been aloud to carry on if he was dressed as George Bush, holding a sign that read, "support our troops"?
I'm writing this purposefully ignorant of any local media attention this has received throughout the day. One of the things I'm attempting to do more of is formulate my thoughts and opinions, irrespective of "reaction" journalism. Even as I type, it's hard for me not to flick on the television and catch my local affiliate(s) reporting. In a state like Maine, believe me, this is a major news story.
Unlike many of my fellow U.S. citizens, I don't think the solution to crime is putting more police on the streets. Personally, as someone who has participated in several public demonstrations, involving political themes, more times than not, I've felt less safe in the presence of a law enforcement. Just recently, it was the law enforcement community, in fact, that had an integral role in the censorship of a university art display, by someone who identified themselves as a political prisoner. (In order to be "fair and balanced," here is the mainstream account--notice the headline?)
Our local communities would be better off if first, we identified the root causes of acts of criminal intent, if in fact we could all reach a consensus on what constitutes a crime. Secondly, we then would have to accept the responsibility that comes with that identification and find ways to engage all our fellow citizens in helping to make our communities places where uniformed officers, lethal force and protection of private property wasn't necessary. But of course that would be way too "utopian" for the average American to wrap their little law and order brains around. So instead, we assign the power of life and death to some of our flawed fellow citizens and wonder why 465 page reports detailing human rights violations are part of our reality (a reality that many would deny). As Chomsky has written, the "rabble must be instructed in the values of subordination and a narrow quest for personal gain within the parameters set by the institutions of the masters; meaningful democracy, with popular association and action, is a threat to be overcome." Let me go just a little further with my "egghead" reasoning and quote a little Murray Bookchin, and you tell me if those commuters passing Connolly on I-295, aren't apparent in the following quote:
"...the modern city is a virtual appendage of the capitalist workplace, being an outgrowth and essential counterpart of the factory (where "factory" means any enterprise in which surplus value is extracted from employees.) As such, cities are structured and administered primarily to serve the needs of the capitalist elite -- employers -- rather than the needs of the many -- their employees. From this standpoint, the city must be seen as (1) a transportation hub for importing raw materials and exporting finished products; and (2) a huge dormitory for wage slaves, conveniently locating them near the enterprises where their labor is to exploited, providing them with entertainment, clothing, medical facilities, etc. as well as coercive mechanisms for controlling their behavior. "
[The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship]
Connolly will be interviewed tomorrow morning on WGAN, AM-560, during their morning show. For those of us in its signal area, it should be worth tuning in to.
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