Il Governatore

Boy Has it been a while since, my last post!  Time and life conspired against me.  However, in my daily travels I recently came across a flyer that truly sums up how I, and I am sure most of the public, feel about Paul LePage.  The author, who seems to have made a political satire of a political satire, goes by the name Nicc Machi and gladly and simply sent me a copy of the flyer for my own posting when I messaged him.  I recommend anyone with a similar view of our poor excuse for a governor message him and get your own!  Let's put this everywhere, make it impossible for LePage to ignore us!

The dangers of letting money talk

Corporations have too much political, legal, and influential power in America.  The past decade has seen an increase in the powers of corporate entities and the super rich not seen since the days of the robber barons.  Continually decreased taxes on the higher tax brackets, artificially low estate and capital gains taxes, and a strict adherence to the 'trickle down' theory have left our middle class struggling, our poor teetering on the edge of poverty, and not enough services for the impoverished to go around.  The ratio of what top paid corporate employees make in comparison to an average worker are at their highest point since the 'gilded age' of the robber barons, when the poor literally starved while the rich built sprawling mansion complexes.  On top of this corporations, they themselves run by the ultra rich plutocratic elite, have seen restrictions on their influence and destructive capabilities decreased, including the recent ruling in 2010 of allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts on elections.  Those who have fought hard to win this inequity, the top 0.5% of wage earners, truly believe they deserve their four homes complete with staff, four yachts, private plane, twelve cars, and two months of vacation a year, while the bottom 50% of wage earners (of those lucky enough to be employed fulltime) deserve just enough to barely pay the mortgage, put food on the table, and gas in their cars.  The law on the books even states that corporations MUST prioritize profit for their shareholders above all else, the practical result of which is that worker's rights and pay have decreased, what used to be two 40 hour jobs is often now one 50 hour a week job, ecological responsibility is on the way out, and business ethics in general tend to follow one rule "if it makes money, do it"!  So, the rich are getting so rich they could easily make you do anything, and I mean anything, for the right price.  Human life and suffering have become cheap: those who cannot afford to feed their kids obviously shouldn't have had them; the sick should obviously go into debt, because the healthcare market here is so fair and reasonably priced; the homeless and jobless just aren't trying hard enough; and so many other similar narratives bought and paid for by the ultra-rich, and distributed by their bought and paid for representatives, like politicians, corporations, and pundits.  Meanwhile 'We The People' have for the most part bought it hook line and sinker.  Who cares if your neighbor is drowning in debt and can't afford to get his roof fixed AND make payments on his house, as long as you've got yours.  We've forgotten to care about each other, identifying any, and every, person we don't know as 'the other'.  There is little, if any, sense of community anymore.  The news keeps us tense, afraid, and guarding our little patch of dirt fiercely.  The economic state keeps us squabbling over jobs, begging for benefits, and pretty fairly at the complete mercy of our employers.  While the state of politics keeps us fighting over which of two sides, both of which are wrong and do not represent us, is right.  All of this has happened with our tacit consent.  While we have been looking to those with the greatest wealth as something to be emulated, a gold to attain, and a lifestyle to be envied, they have been walking away with our rights, claiming they are owed more, stealing the wealth of our nation for themselves, and arguing that we should all have to beg them for scraps, because it is by their wealth alone that the economy continues.  This is wrong!  Those who do nothing are making billions, companies who do nothing are making billions, meanwhile jobs that actually produce something, instead of just pushing paper and serving the public, are disappearing at a rate never before heard of.  Our economy is in dire straights and allowing those at the top to keep more of the fruits of our collective labor will never help matters.  We, as a nation, need to stand together and loudly and constantly proclaim that rights and lives of the collective individuals that make up this nation are more important and should be given greater weight than the profits of our largest companies and the wealth accumulation of the already rich.  We need to agree that a man who hasn't worked a day in his life should be charged more taxes for having been born with money, than a man making 50k a year working as a plumber.  I urge anyone unfamiliar with our national tax rates to go take a good look at what people actually get charged.  Why should you only pay 15% in taxes for owning millions of dollars of shares in company, when the workers at that company making significantly less per month are expected to pay more.  We The People formed this government, and We The People need to take it back.  Most of our politicians have been bought, through donations, schmoozing, and influence brokering, by one or more corporate special interests.  Almost every industry in America has a lobby, that doesn't work for the workers of that industry, doesn't work for the streamlining of that industry, doesn't even work to make being in that industry easier, their only goal is to make it more profitable by requesting favors, promising favors, wining and dining, and making their voices louder than those of any politicians constituents.  Our companies are not our country.  Our people are our country.  We need to work together as the people of this country to demand that those taking the largest share of the pie give back a significantly larger piece, otherwise they will continue to get fat while the majority of us starve on the crumbs.

It's your fault

Right now our country and my state are falling to shit, and It's your fault.  Every American who reads this, know that it is your fault our country has gone this far down the crapper.  For too long we have lived beyond our means, without producing enough, and letting our balance of trade go to hell, but that's not why it's your fault.  For too long we have expanded our laws to the ridiculous point of every person reading this is guilty of at least one crime punishable by jailtime in the last year, they just don't know it, but that's still not why it's your fault.  It's your fault because for most of your entire life you have tolerated a system of governance that makes little to no progress, has repeatedly and constantly taken away the rights of it's citizens since it's inception, and is controlled in it's entirety by two extreme and opposite parties.  I'm saying it right now: the entirety of American politics is, and will remain, broken, as long as the Democrats and the Republicans continue to control anything over 20% of the vote based on party loyalties.  The political parties of America have begun to more resemble the extreme differences of the Shiite and Sunni Muslims than that of elected officials working for the future of our country.  It's a situation in which the parties, and those faithful to them, barely tolerate each other's existence, only just acknowledging that they have anything in common, and secretly wishing they could squeeze the life out of the other side.  These sides do not make progress, with very few exceptions the elected members of these parties do very little to work for the good of your average American, let alone their actual constituents, both sides only care about re-election and 'pleasing the base', and above all they want to make their friends happy, party, casual, and donor.  The self serving noise and money machine that is two party politics does not serve the greater good, and it is sinking our great nation.  That's my opinion, I welcome yours.

About what constitutes 'news' in this country

24 hour news networks are a terrible source for news, every single biased one of them.  Some are biased as company policy such as Fox News, some are biased based on the views of the writers, but all are biased towards whatever is profitable.  Some newspapers and television news broadcasts strive to make their selling point a dedication to the actual news, namely: important world, national, and local events; offering in depth analysis of the situation, development, and points of view involved in the issue being reported upon.  I don't see anything that I would call "news", with the sole exception of the occasional "breaking news" story, on any of the 24 hour news networks.  Those in the 24 hour news game can only call their channels 'news' networks in the same way that the 'history' channel can claim their current show lineup has anything to do with history.  Every single 24 hour news network manages at most 2 hours of actual news in a day, with up to another 6 hours of them repeating the same story without any developments if it was a really big story, even longer if it was a catastrophe.  This leaves a full two thirds to eleven twelfths of the day for them to fill.  So, what do they choose to fill it with?  Not well thought out pieces on the developments in old stories.  Not an intelligent exploration of the issues at hand.  Certainly not a moderate average American look at what is going on in our lives today.  These networks deliberately focus on sensationalism, scandal, tragedy, horror, sex, fluff, and loud angry partisan wing nuts, from either side of insanity.  So, because it isn't as profitable to actually attempt to do the news 24 hours a day, and it's so damn hard, and costly to pay all those field reporters to *gasp* investigate something, they pollute the minds of millions of Americans into believing that the world is a horrible frightening lascivious place where they have to choose a side, one of the two they sell you, in terms of politics and views, and you're not allowed to mix these sides, you can only be a conservative or a liberal, because that's what sells.

Moving forward, beyond partisanship

The divisive and mean spirited bickering between the two extremes of the political spectrum has left the majority of us, with mixed or moderate views, out of the process almost entirely.  The unreasonable, angry, loud, and 'ideologically pure' mentality of both major political parties has stalled our national progress, and has lowered much of our political process to the finger pointing and name calling of third grade.  This is a problem many of us can agree on, even some of those shouting at the other side agree civility and respect have gradually left the nation's political discourse.  For too long the civil minded and forward looking population has been without an organizing cry.  Enter No Labels, a politically minded organization dedicated to getting our population to put aside our differences, to stop labeling those who disagree with us in an effort to discredit them, to elect a government that works for it's people and not it's parties, and to stop attacking people for their views or beliefs.  This is exactly the kind of putting aside of differences our country needs, and we here at Maine Independence support any effort to bring honor and cooperation back to both government and our society as a whole.  Stop by the No Labels website, see what they have to say, and make the choice to move past our current situation, working together, for a tomorrow we can all be proud of.

Paul LePage is an idiot (or ignorant, take your pick)

Want to look for something stupid, entirely self-serving, or without any redeeming value to the citizens of the state of Maine that Paul LePage has said or done?  Well just lay out the front pages of the Press Herald for the past couple months and throw a dart.  The blowhard in chief was elected mostly by a push from that angry, self interested, and generally unreasonable group the tea party, and they have continued to defend all of his actions, even those that go against their core values, since he edged his less than 2/5 of the vote win over Eliot Cutler.  Now, I am in no way saying I disagree with the values and proposed policies of the tea party mentality.  I am however disturbed by the anger and unreasonable vitriol they display towards those of different viewpoints and the tenacious party line dogma they exhibit, for instance defending LePage when he hired his daughter right out of college, moved her into the Blaine house, and giving her an entry level salary over 40k with another 15k in benefits and a 10k housing benefit; to me their can be no clearer evidence of abuse of power and runaway bureaucracy than nepotism.  Yet those party faithful continue to defend LePage, dismissing the concerns of Independents, such as myself, as 'liberal propaganda'.  But I digress, I'm not here to talk about why I think LePage is a terrible governor who is doing very little to make good on his campaign promises to the people of Maine, I'm talking about why I think he's an idiot.  Let's start with the fact that LePage has shown, time and again, that he doesn't understand basic scientific concepts, most recently the difference between testosterone and estrogen with his beards and BPA 'joke'.  The fact that we have an elected governor who thinks it's a good idea to make 'casual jokes' to the press, let alone jokes that fully display his ignorance of basic scientific concepts, is evidence of staggering ineptitude.  The press is there to report, if any elected official were to make a 'casual joke' to the press that comes off as bigoted, small minded, ignorant, and dismissive of other viewpoints, and expect it to go unreported, then they probably don't deserve their high school diploma.  The governor's stance on science seems to be that if it's more complicated than high school level he doesn't need to understand it.  I also think he's an ignorant blowhard because of the way he represents our state, cracking wise about people and groups "kissing his ass" and saying the president can "go to hell".  Even though I dislike Paul LePage in the extreme and think he isn't fit to run a duckpond, let alone Marden's or our state, I would never introduce into any kind of public discourse rude and inflammatory statements for the soul purpose of sounding off my frustration, since it would be childish and ultimately pointless.  Which is how I feel about LePage, he is Childish, but unfortunately has power; like a little kid with a can of silly string, he doesn't care what damage he does, how long it takes to clean up, or how it makes us look, as long as he gets and does what he wants.  That's my opinion, I welcome yours.

In defense of Crafts' Bill (LD 658)

State representative Dale Crafts has brought a bill (LD 658) in our state government to relax a lot of the restrictions on carrying a concealed weapon.  First let me paint for you the dark and dismal picture painted by the anti-weapons advocates.  In the opinion of those against the bill this kind of legislation would lead to: coercion through the threat of violence, a wild shooting at a high school football game, children playing with guns in the streets totally devoid of respect for the weapon, and would lead to an increase in convicted criminals and disgruntled lovers carrying weapons with the intent to use them.  It's that last part that highlights my support of this bill: Intent.  Anyone in the state of Maine can purchase any kind of firearm they like already.  Don't believe me?  1.) Find yourself a convicted felon; 2.) Get a copy of Uncle Henry's; 3.) Find a firearm, any firearm, like the one pictured, which I found for less than $350; 4.) Purchase weapon from owner, end of transaction.  While the felon is now in violation of state law by possessing the weapon, the lack of background check and process you went through to purchase that weapon were perfectly legal, only the choice of buyer makes this action illegal.   In spite of relaxed regulations such as these, Maine's per capita firearm violence rate is less than half of the national average.  So, what stops someone, even a convicted violent offender, intent on using a firearm in an aggressive manner, from concealing and using the weapon for violence?  The answer is: absolutely nothing.  Anyone intent on causing harm with a weapon will do so, regardless of the law.  The issue is not whether they carried the weapon openly or concealed, but that they intended harm when they set out.  So, why keep carrying concealed a crime?  What does it prevent exactly?  Whether a gun was carried openly or concealed should be an issue for trial, an aggravating factor in the commission of a crime, not a crime itself.  We allow hunters to concealed carry loaded handguns for protection against bear, moose, and coyote without a permit, why should you be required to get a permit to carry one from one end of Portland to another, where your chances of a violent encounter are significantly increased, if your intent is nothing more than protecting yourself.  This bill would not allow you to carry your weapon into a school or school property, or at a liquor selling establishment, or into any state owned structure or vehicles, contrary to what anti-weapon activists are claiming.  What this bill does do is reduce the cost of obtaining a permit, change the assumption that if you haven't had gun safety in 5 years you are so dumb you forgot how to be safe, and streamline permit applications for concealed carry.  I believe in the ability and personal responsibility of the people of the state of Maine, I believe that the vast majority of gun owners are respectful of their weapons and of the laws regarding violence, and I don't believe the current laws do anything to stop those who would perpetrate violence with a firearm, just like marijuana laws haven't done much to stop people intent on smoking it from doing so.  That's my opinion, I welcome yours.