Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

June 27, 1936

A Rendezvous With Destiny

President Roosevelt:

“Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, My Friends: Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. For their loyalty I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union. I salute those of other parties, especially those in the Congress of the United States who on so many occasions have put partisanship aside. I thank the governors of the several states, their legislatures, their state and local officials who participated unselfishly and regardless of party in our efforts to achieve recovery and destroy abuses. Above all I thank the millions of Americans who have borne disaster bravely and have dared to smile through the storm.

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

Philadelphia is a good city in which to write American history. This is fitting ground on which to reaffirm the faith of our fathers; to pledge ourselves to restore to the people a wider freedom; to give to 1936 as the founders gave to 1776 – an American way of life.

That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy – from the eighteenth-century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man’s property and the average man’s life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.

And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

Since that struggle, however, man’s inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution – all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital – all undreamed of by the Fathers – the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.

It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor – these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age – other people’s money – these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: “Necessitous men are not free men.” Liberty requires opportunity to make a living – a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people’s mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.

But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.

For more than three years we have fought for them. This convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that the fight will go on.

The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.

We do not see faith, hope, and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.

Faith – in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.

Hope – renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.

Charity – in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

We seek not merely to make government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.

We are poor indeed if this nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.

In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.

It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.

Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.

Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of ours, in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.”

“Who do you trust more, government or big business” was the question asked by Fareed Zakaria of CNN at the end of one of his Sunday news shows recently.  I must confess I didn’t struggle much with the question. Instead, I found myself asking, “What’s the difference between government and big business?”

The recent federal bailouts of banks and insurance companies – basically a bailout of Wall Street – make clear that there is little difference between the two. I’m not sure, after four years in the Maine State Legislature, that there is much difference between the Chamber of Commerce and the Maine State Government.

Commerce is important but so too is Democracy. China is engaged in vibrant global commerce but I’m certain that their form of republic is incongruent with ours. Ours is a republic best described by either the Maine State Constitution:

All power is inherent in the people; all free governments are founded in their authority and instituted for their benefit; they have therefore an unalienable and indefeasible right to institute government, and to alter, reform, or totally change the same, when their safety and happiness require it:

Or the online dictionary:

“A state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.”

I don’t reject that corporations have a place in our society. In fact, I’m quite conservative on this matter. I agree with history and Republican President Theodore Roosevelt on the issue.

“Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism… we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely… are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown,” in a speech at New York in 1902.

I will grant that corporations are different today than they were in Teddy Roosevelt’s day. Today, they are every bit as big and powerful as he feared they would be if “We, the people,” failed to keep them in check. Today they are multinational in scope. Today, they are also as small as they are big and this makes things a bit confusing. For this reason I want to make clear that when I speak of corporations, I’m speaking of the multinational sort and not the neighborly sort like the local restaurant, construction company, or lumber yard.

I also find myself in agreement with Republican Presindent Abraham Lincoln, who said in a letter to one of his officers on the Civil War battlefield, “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

It seems to me that we Americans have submitted to the power of a corporate-controlled government at the state and federal level for too long. We have become subservient to them rather than the way Teddy Roosevelt envisioned them, as constructs of the law, being subservient to society.

We’ve permitted ourselves to be divided by labels – Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals, Red states and Blue states, the left and the right. Today even the word “progressive” is being turned on its head as though the progress we are so proud of is now something bad. Our only salvation is to realize that we are Americans first and these other thing later. If we fail to recognize this we’re doomed to become the conquest of those that benefit from dividing us.

If a “republic” is a state in which the supreme power resides in the people than a “Republican” is a citizen that subscribes to the idea that “We, the people,” have the power to “alter, reform, or totally change the same, when their safety and happiness require it.”

A “Democrat,” on the other hand, is a citizen who believes he or she is “entitled to vote…” and elect “representatives” to ensure that government reflects their will and not merely that of special interests.

In essence, there is little difference between a Republican and a Democrat at the grassroots level. As “citizens” both are rooted soundly in the principle upon which the Declaration of Independence is founded, as well as our own Maine State Constitution. Please keep in mind that I’m not denying that we “believe” that there are great differences between us, Republicans and Democrats, when we permit ourselves to be divided. However, when you look around at your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and colleagues, you see we are more united than divided in the challenges we face. We are more alike than different. When we go to church, we go as one congregation, not as two divided by an isle. As a state, we are many municipalities united as one. As a nation, we are fifty states united as one. It is in this sense of oneness, of unity, that we find the safety, security and prosperity that this state and nation are founded on.

Having said this, it is important to look at, and talk about, the things that ail us. Family values are important to all Mainers, as well as all Americans, regardless of race, religion, gender or political affiliation. The force that tears at the fabric of our families today is the loss of opportunity that once was the trademark of the American Dream. From one generation to the next, life for our children necessarily needs to get better. Upward mobility and the chance to become all you can be is key to the American dream.

Ross Perot, 1992 presidential candidate, warned us that global trade agreements would lead to the loss of American jobs and a decline in our standard of living. Perot was correct! Our standard of living has declined. It continues to decline. What is left of Maine’s paper industry is forced to contend with paper imported by China and available in our “free markets” at forty percent less than what it costs us to produce paper. I use the word ‘contend” rather than “compete” because competition implies that there is a contest between equals. I have nothing but admiration to the hard work and history of the Chinese people. However, what we have here is not equal, and not competitive.

American workers are contending with shamefully paid low-wage workers, producing goods in hazardous and environmentally unfriendly conditions. We have goods in our markets produced by prison labor in China. As Americans, we took a stand against this sort of immoral commerce during the Lincoln Administration when we abolished the long-standing and business friendly institution of slavery. It’s time to take such a stand again.

The Book of Matthew warns us to “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” I’m no authority on scripture and rarely cite Bible passages to make a point. This isn’t because I don’t value what the Good Book has to offer but because others have dedicated their lives to knowing the Book and its meaning. In this case, however, I can’t help but agree with Matthew that “You will recognize them by their fruits… every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.”

Looking at the fruit born by today’s multi-nationals, the global economic crisis, the increasingly unhealthy environment, the rising rate of cancers, broken families with dreams deferred, one cannot help but submit to the idea that “change” must be more than a sound-bite. It must be something that perks up from the people, forcing the vehicle of government, at all levels, to move in a direction that fulfills the promise of opportunity to make the dream come true.

We, the people, have been pleading, from the outside, for government to hear our voices. This tactic has not been effective. However, filling the seats of government with people who live and work like you do is a plan that can’t fail. Please vote for me, Rick Burns, on November 2nd and ensure that “change” is more than a word and much like an action – an action to make government work for you. Let’s expose the real problem, corporate control of government, and put forth solutions that make us part of a “land of opportunity,” rather than the land of desperation into which unfair global trade has misled us.

This is not to say that we have no problems with the corporate media. We do! We have a problem with it because is has become a monopolist behemoth that virtually controls the distribution of information and thus shapes the way the public thinks about and reacts to the world around them. They say jump and we jump.
 
It is no surprise that we jump for the media. We are a society founded upon the principle of free speech. We value the process of thinking. We especially value the process whereby we share those thoughts with each other. We’re a nation established in the realm of deep thought and we’re proud of it. There used to be a barrier between news content and money. The flow of ideas were covered by the press without concern for sources of revenue.  
 
The mechanisms used to distribute the wealth of our ideas used to be widespread and independent. Towns and cities once had their own newspapers, radio and television stations. Today these vehicles for disseminating information are conglomerates, owned by multinational corporations. Once they were family businesses. Now they are publicly trade enterprises or wholely owned by powerful elites.
 
So, government is broken and so too is our state and nation. We cannot speak of the health of our state without consideration for the health of our nation. What ails Maine ails the other states as well.
 
We are just one part of a greater whole to which we “pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
 
We are led to believe that our troubles are with each other. We have neighbor pitted against neighbor, town against town, state against state. We’re led into a fierce competition against ourselves in a race to the land of no promise while those that lead us there make enormous gains at our expense.
 

Americans are losing their homes. One third of all homeless Americans are veterans. Americans still holding on to their homes have no access to healthcare. College student find no jobs commensurate with their expensive educations. Our elderly still struggle between putting food on the table and buying pharmaceuticals to maintain their health. We can no longer afford the public sector – teachers, law enforcement, fire & rescue, as the private sector upon which these are funded have been shipped off to foreign lands to avoid paying Americans wages that support families and family values.
The problem at the root of all this pain is attributable, in part, to the media characterized above. However, greedy global trade agreements crafted behind closed doors causing the loss of our industrial base compounds the problem. It can fairly be said that what ails us, as a nation is more by design than by accident.

The solution – we all must return home from the battlefield of political divide. There are more Independent voters in Maine and America than there are Democrats and Republicans combined. Party politics has proven to be everything our founders feared – a force that would ultimately divide us as a nation and permit us to be conquered by powers at odds with who we are as a nation.
 
Political parties did not exist at the birth of our nation. President George Washington frowned on the idea suggesting a nation shaped by factions would pit one group of citizens against another. How could he be so right? The people have a right to establish government, Washington believed, and political parties are “destructive” to this end, he argued in his farewell speech of 1796.
 
Political parties “serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.” 

A two-party political monopoly has reduced America to ping-pong-politics. We bounce our problems back-and-forth between the two as though they had an interest in solving the nations problems.

It’s time we look at each other as Americans and not as D’s and R’s, Liberals and Conservatives, red states and blue states. We are Americans before we are anything else. When we permit ourselves to be so divided, we stop being who we are as a nation.
 
When we pledge allegiance to the flag, we do much more than pledge an allegiance to a piece of cloth with symbolic colors. We pledge an allegiance to each other. We make a promise to each other that we will work together for a common cause, an American Dream.
 

Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to one of his officers on the battlefield said, “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

I’m not sure what Lincoln meant by “the prejudices of the people,” but Webster defines prejudice as an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.”

Being a resident of Maine I must admit that my knowledge of Maine is based on real life experience and observation. My knowledge of people and places far off is dependent upon the corporate media. If I form an unfavorable opinion of someone or someplace based on the spoon-fed media concoction I must ask myself if I’m acting with “liberty and justice for all,” or on some prejudice shaped by the media and played upon by some special interest.

This leads me to the last point I want to make. What do we mean when we refer to “people,” particularly in the context of “We, The People?” and what do we mean when we speak of “national interest?”

Clearly when my neighbor talks about people, she’s talking about real, live, breathing people. Based on the recent United States Supreme Court Decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission corporations are people too. They have the same free-speech rights as individuals. In fact, corporations have all the rights that real people have and are entitled to all the constitutional protections offered to living Americans. The fact that they are often multinational corporations with mostly unlimited resources is irrelevant. The fact that they live an eternity rather than a mortal lifetime is unimportant.  Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune points out that,

“…The Constitution did not mention corporations… The Framers left it to the states to create corporations through charters and rules that varied by state. Anyone who put a corporation out of business could be accused of many things, but murder was not one of them.”

What does this mean? It means that a judge, legislating from the bench, made a decision that a corporation, a piece of property created by men – not God – has the same rights as you and I. Does this make sense? To some, yes. To most, not at all! If you’re a corporate lawyer, paid by corporate interests, it makes lots of sense – dollars & cents.

According to Page,” The 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company is often cited as the beginning of “corporate personhood” under the law. Yet this personhood comes ambiguously, not in the body of the decision but in something that Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite was quoted in the decision’s legal summary as having said before oral arguments began.”

“The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does,” according to the headnote of the court reporter.

“As a result,” Page says, “the court appears to have ruled on the equal-protection issue without ever weighing it through any argument, deliberation or formal opinions. Thin as this legal reed may be, generations of lawyers have clung to it in arguing for an expanding galaxy of corporate rights.”

It should be clear to us by now that corporate people have more access to the media than do real, living Americans. It should also be clear that corporations have more access to the courts, the third branch of government, than do real, living Americans.

Lincoln was no stranger to the forces that divide a nation. Neither was he a stranger to the practice of global trade and economics. In his day we were torn much the way we are today. At least then, Lincoln and the nation had the clarity of mind to know that union and community was the path to our salvation and a “house divided against itself can not stand.”

The Civil War has come to define the Lincoln administration but he was more than that war. Lincoln understood commerce. Not only was the transcontinental railroad built during his administration but it gave birth to the American steel Industry, which gave birth to a locomotive and freight car industry followed by a passenger train industry. In fact, there is no industry in America that doesn’t have at least one set of rails leading to and from its place of business; raw materials in and finished product out and all spawned by the rails laid across this nation with taxpayer dollars and from the pen of Abraham Lincoln.

The untold story of the Lincoln administration lies in his insistence that the rails be bought and paid for here, in America, rather than the leading supplier of steel at the time – Great Britain. Industrialist wanted rails and they wanted them fast. The United States had an emerging Steel Industry capable of meeting the demand but lacking the sophistication of the Brits.

Lincoln’s position, “We can buy from the Brits. We can have our steel and they can have our money… Or, we can buy from Americans and have both the steel and the money.”

If Lincoln lived longer, it is my guess that corporate power would have taken a back seat to the power of the people. Corporate media would not be a part of our lexicon and government would reflect your will and advance your interests rather than tending to the needs and interests of Wall Street banks and insurance companies!

• A handful of multinational corporations control practically all media in America
• Special interest corporate lobbyists write and introduce legislation
• Corporate media shapes public opinion in favor of such legislation.
• Public opinion influences the outcome of legislative action.

Election day arrives and Americans vote against their own interest in favor of special interests and then everyone wonders what’s wrong with government?

Well, if you’re a multinational corporate special interest government has worked just fine for you. You received what you paid for:

• Global trade agreements that yield great profits while undermining the very foundation upon which sets the balance of America not to mention the rest of the Western World.
• Jobs are lost and pension plans go belly-up.
• Homes are lost and families fall apart.

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

An interesting string of words, to say the least; It sounds like it comes from some modern-day leftist liberal hell-bent on crucifying big business. These words come from the heart and soul of none other than Abraham Lincoln in a letter to one of his officers on the battlefield during the Civil War.

Lincoln’s words should leave us with questions. Has the crisis he feared arrived? I’m guessing it has been upon us since Lincoln’s assassination. Others might say it has clearly been upon us since judges, legislating from the bench in 1886, in the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad, which gave the same constitutional rights to Corporations that you and I have as individual living, breathing creatures of the Lord.

From this point onward, corporations, which are technically property, were given the same rights and protections as real human beings. Have corporations been enthroned by the Supreme Court case of Santa Clara? The answer, I suggest, is a resounding yes!

Corruption in high places?

• Who hasn’t seen it?
• Felt it?
• Has money and power worked upon the prejudices of the people?

Just look and listen to the corporate media and its celebrated talking heads spewing their hate and discontent. I don’t need to name them. If they have regularly scheduled time on expensive television and radio programs, and seek to shape the way you think and act, then you know who they are!

Is wealth accumulated in the hands of the few?

All you have to do is look at the plight of your family, friends and neighbors as their wealth diminishes while Wall Street wealth rises.

The only question left to ask is “what is to be done” about it?

April 3, 2008

The Maine Legislature has closed the gap in the state’s budget caused by revenue shortfalls during the first quarter of the year. These revenue shortfalls are the result of many forces. Primary among these forces are the issues of global economics and unfair trade agreements that have undermined this nation’s economy while enriching large corporations.

While I did not join my fellow Democrats in voting for the supplemental budget, I commend the majority of Maine legislators for arguing their case and pulling together a budget. My opposition to the budget revolved around two points: 1) the late-in-the-process cuts to OPEGA (the government oversight and accountability agency) and 2) the seeming unwillingness of the governor’s office and others to put what is called the “economic development package” on the table for review and cuts.

Balancing the budget in hard times means everyone puts something on the table. If any portion of our population needs to be spoken for and protected more than another, it is certainly children, the elderly and people with disabilities. For programs that verge on corporate welfare to escape the cutting table is not acceptable. For those reasons, I voted against the budget.

The following prayer was given in the House of Representatives on April 1, the day after the budget was approved, by the Rev. Peter B. Panagore of First Radio Parish Church of America.

Let’s Pray.

Dear God,

They were up all night,

These leaders of Maine,

Who made the hard choices,

Who made the tough decisions,

Who did what they could with what they had

For the benefit of the state as a whole.

The attacks have begun,

The dissatisfaction

The accusations

And the ramifications

For being leaders

For acting

For choosing when

There was no good solution,

No miracle to cure what ailed us

It was dollars and sense,

Dollars and S E N S E,

There was only cutting

As little and as large as possible,

And sadly pushing a burden

Onto communities and persons

Onto those who can least

Afford it.

We know that.

There was no help for it

But to pass a yoke

On to those who struggle most

And have valid needs, and

Onto towns who must now

Shoulder the minds of school children

Upon their tax burdened backs, and

On to churches who will dig deeper

To supply human services to human beings

This is no condemnation, God, it is a lamentation,

Just an appraisal of where we are in this together.

Bottom line, God, there was little choice for our leaders,

We can’t spend money we don’t have,

For justice roll down like waters

And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,

We simply need more than we have more water, more streams

We ask your help in shoveling out the mud of this regrettable blockage

And in this inevitable season in which we find ourselves.

These leaders of Maine,

Did what had to be done

They balanced what they could

In a situation that no one wants to be in

And not many may praise them, but

We will, God, right now, we will praise them for their courage to compromise

For their forthrightly making decisions that open them to attack

For doing what had to be done and

For making do with what they found.

Our state is pretty stove up, God; now it’s time to look to the future

And build an economy that will take compromise and vision,

Hard work and innovation,

And with Your willingness, bring prosperity.

Keep an eye our leaders, God. Give them backbone,

Give them thoughtfulness, give them frugality and compassion

In all they do.

Amen.

Of course I know the answer is yes. And I also know that when you go to your local merchant and buy those expensive big-ticket items that are today made in China or some other-than America place, you are given the opportunity to purchase an extended warranty.

What you don’t know, however, and your merchant does not want you to know, is that the Maine State Legislature has created for you what is called “Implied Warranty.”

To put it simply, if you buy one of these types of expensive made in some other-than-America places, there is the expectation that they are going to last longer then two-weeks or even two-years.

In fact, Chapter 4 of the Maine Consumer Law Guide says that these goods must be able to do the job and last as long as these goods traditionally last. Most of us old enough to know better know that lawn mowers and snow blowers, as well as washers and dryers (formerly made in America) typically last a long time; well beyond what the retailer will sell you an extended warranty for.

Meantime, while you and I are paying extra money that we really don’t have for “extended warranties,” the Maine Merchant’s Association is patting itself on the back for succeeding in keeping you in the dark while picking your pockets clean of money you don’t have to spare.

Maine Merchants and its business colleagues effectively lobbied to defeat proposals that… required retailers to notify customers of Maine’s unique implied warranty law. This comes from the Maine Merchants Association Newsletter Volume XXXVIII No. 6 June 2008.

It is time that all of these lobbies were held accountable for what they do out of public view in our state house and federal government. It’s time you knew the truth about people who seek to extort money from you with extended warranties while keeping you in the dark about your rights.

More importantly, it is essential that you know how your state representative or senator voted on this issue by going to www.maine.gov and looking at the roll-call vote for LD-2143.

Another important question is: Why would it even be legal for the merchant to squeeze you of money that protects you from something that the law already offers you for free?

April 23, 2008

Once again, winter imposed its cold harsh way on Mainers. We know this weather well and understand and accept it, and that’s why we are New Englanders. The oil industry, too, unleashed its cold harsh way on Mainers, and though this may be understandable, it is not acceptable.

“It is absurd,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, “for oil companies like Exxon Mobil to be raking in obscene profits while millions of Americans are struggling to pay skyrocketing gas and home heating oil prices. We owe it to the American people to do everything we can to stop big oil companies from ripping off American consumers.”

What can we do to help ourselves? What can our government do to help us help ourselves? Well, we can certainly invest in alternative energies, and we do. But we can do more and we can do it faster. In fact, before next winter, Maine could lead the nation in reducing the cost-of-living, become less oil-dependent, and serve the environment by giving tax credits to homeowners who make investments in energy efficiency and reduction.

Pellet stoves and boilers are becoming more popular as alternative energy investments. Mainers are realizing that these appliances, fueled by renewable resources that can be manufactured right here in Maine, are a win-win option for all. Installing pellet stoves empowers each of us to serve our own self interest and ultimately the common interest by using a product that reduces our own expenditures, does less harm to the environment, and liberates us from foreign oil.

The future of pellet stoves, according to Dell Technologies, will include a high-energy switchgrass pellet that will eliminate our need to use non-renewable, less efficient fuels. These stoves will come equipped with 12-volt battery back-up that can be plugged in to a solar power source for coverage during power outages. Most stoves on the market today are already equipped with battery back-up.

The EPA considers pellet stoves the cleanest burning appliances today, with the lowest emissions of any wood, pellet or fossil fueled combustion system, including natural gas.

How can the government help? By giving us back some of our tax dollars for a good cause. Maine Revenue Services currently gives a tax credit to businesses that switch to pollution-reducing boilers. However, they don’t offer this credit to consumers. There is an effort in the state legislature to expand that credit to all Mainers.

On the federal level, two pieces of legislation are gaining traction. One is H.R. 4244, the “Clean Stove Act of 2007.” H.R. 4244 seeks to give all Americans a rebate for upgrading to cleaner burning wood stoves. The problem with this bill is that you need to have an existing wood stove to qualify for the credit when you switch to a cleaner burning stove. The fact that pellet stoves are more environmentally friendly and make us less dependent on foreign oil does not factor into the act. Maine legislators have submitted a joint order asking Congress to make this tax break available to all.

The other effort at the federal level is H.R. 5351, the “Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2008,” which seeks to provide tax incentives for the production of renewable energy and energy conservation.

These tax credits, if made available to Mainers, would permit us to supplement or replace oil and gas furnaces with appliances that save us money and liberate us from foreign oil. Equally important, though, they open the door for us to build a pellet-producing industry here in Maine, which would create jobs, reduce the cost-of-living and stimulate our economy.

We urge you to contact your state and federal legislators and encourage them to give tax breaks that make sense and give working families their due. Rep. Burns can be reached at 698-1526 or Rep. Burns. Rep. Theriault can be reached at 728-4526 or Rep. Theriault.

“The first Monday in September of each year, being the day celebrated and known as labor’s holiday, is hereby made a legal public holiday, to all intents and purposes, in the same manner as thanksgiving, fast and Christmas days, the twenty-second day of February, the thirtieth day of May and the fourth day of July, are now by law made public holidays.”

— Maine public law, adopted Feb. 10, 1891

It has now been 117 years since Maine’s first observance of labor’s holiday, or Labor Day as it is more commonly known, a holiday that pays tribute to workers and recognizes their role in the prosperity of our country.

The American workforce has changed a lot in that time, as has the observance of the holiday. Gone are the days of parades and speeches by labor organizations, and the meaning of the holiday is often lost in the excitement of backyard barbecues and back-to-school preparations.

As we celebrate the holiday this year, our nation grapples with a failing housing market, rising energy costs and an overall economic downturn. It is during times such as these that it is especially important that we do not lose sight of the achievements and struggles of the American worker, the backbone of our economy.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of two important federal bills that recognized the importance of workers: the Wagner Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, both signed by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The Fair Labor Standards Act protected workers through prohibitions on child labor and long working hours and the establishment of the minimum wage law. The Wagner Act protected the right of workers to join unions and engage in collective bargaining.

Democrats here in Maine know that our state’s economy is dependent on the strength, health and well-being of our workers. Many of our workers participate in active unions.

We now have a law that will allow more workers to realize the benefits of a union. The law formally allows the state to recognize child-care providers as a bargaining unit and to enter into negotiations with them.

While the Fair Labor Standards Act introduced a federal minimum wage, Maine is one of many states that have established their own minimum wage laws. Since 1959, the law has protected our state’s workers when the federal government has lagged behind.

When the federal minimum wage was frozen between 1997 and 2007, Maine continued to grow its minimum wage, recognizing our responsibility to ensure Maine workers are treated fairly and can care for their families.

The Legislature last session approved a bill that will increase the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour beginning in October. The rate will automatically increase to $7.50 in October 2009.

A second law closed a loophole that allowed managers of domestic workers to pay them below the minimum wage. The new law ensures domestic workers are paid at least minimum wage.

Currently, an estimated 26,000 Maine workers are earning the minimum wage. These are not just high-school kids working after-school jobs; about three-quarters of these workers are over the age of 19. The majority of them, more than 60 percent, is women.

But the well-being of the worker does not stop at the paycheck. Three bills that recently became law will ensure that workers do not have to choose between taking care of their families and paying the bills.

Two of them allow a worker to take medical leave in the event a domestic partner or sibling suffers from a serious health condition or if a sibling dies while on active military duty. A third law provides leave for an employee whose spouse is killed or injured while serving in the armed forces.

Together, these measures will help us fulfill our responsibility to the workers, but there is still more to be done. As part of our labor’s holiday celebrations this year, we should reflect on how we can increase incomes across the board.

Higher wages for all workers at all levels will mean more money going back into the economy, the first step in working our way out of the economic downturn.

This article originally appeared in The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

2) Why do the municipalities and the state not seek the highest bidder for the resource we are blessed with and the world wants? Doesn’t the Free Market dictate that Maine should be paid the best price for its water, not the lowest price?

Do we want the world laughing at us, and our children potentially deprived of wealth and opportunity because we gave away our version of Arab oil?

We watched quietly while Industry left this land for cheap labor abroad. I don’t think it is in our best interest to sit silently while our natural resources fall victim to the same rules. That’s my position. If Nestle wants our water, let them have it. But, let’s meet our fiduciary obligation to tax payers first. Let the free market bid for what we have. The demand is great.

When water was being brought to the marketplace by Poland Springs, the people of the State of Maine were not vulnerable to litigation under international law. Now that Poland Springs exists in brand-name only and Nestle is the true owner, and local elected officials are signing the contracts on your behalf – it is the obligation and right of the people to ensure that elected officials do not abridge their rights.

Until someone can answer the two questions above, I believe it would be irresponsible for us to stand by silently and let it happen.

If we are going to sell Maine’s water in global markets, let’s make sure the dividend affords Maine’s People healthcare and higher education!

The primary concern I hear from most people informed and involved in this issue is: what happens to our local and state control of Maine water once it falls under a contract that is governed not by us, but by NAFTA and international law?

Additionally, they want to know if their water district, which was established by state law to secure and protect water for the district residents, is qualified and authorized to engaged in such an international contract.

The State is wrong to continue using the reference of “Poland Spring.” The company is no longer Poland Spring but rather Nestlé Waters of North America, a subsidiary of Nestlé in Italy. It is a large, multi-national corporation with a fiduciary obligation to make money for its shareholders; a commitment that takes legal precedent over the interests of the public.

The State is wrong to think Mainers are focused only on sustainability of the resource. Mainers are smart enough to know water is the epitome of renewable resources. The issue is about the rights of people verses the right’s of multi-national corporations that have no allegiance to anyone but their fiduciary obligations.

Poland Spring understood the water that made them successful was Maine water. Now that Nestlé has bought up the small fish, they threaten to do business elsewhere because Mainers are wisely asking, “what rights do we potentially lose if we engage in a contract with a multi-national corporation doing business in a global market?

Mainers want to know if they will get paid fairly for Maine water. We’ve lost our jobs to global trade, we’re cautious now not to lose our most precious resource, as well. Nestlé can go if they choose to. The free market permits them to do just that – but the water remains.

It’s the water that is the value – not Nestlé. It’s local and state control of the resource that’s important, not a foreign-based corporation. The issue is “fair trade” not blind trade.

The other question I hear is, “where’s the free-market competition? Why is the District eager to sell water to the only bidder and not the highest bidder?” The District has an obligation to ratepayers. Nestlé has an obligation to shareholders. Mainers, ratepayers, want an assurance that the KKW Water District and the State of Maine are looking after the interests of Maine People and not Nestlé.

Mainers want time to study the issue in order to pursue a policy that’s right. We trusted the government on NAFTA and they got it wrong!