The revolution will not be televised. 

“What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?” 

- Valerie Kaur

“When I talk about a political revolution, what I am referring to is the need to do more than just win the next election. It's about creating a situation where we are involving millions of people in the process who are not now involved … 

-Bernie Sanders

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius…  

- Cast of Hair

I want to talk about the false choice the pundits are presenting to Democrats and Progressives. 

We are either to ascribe to the belief that we must return to the status quo that existed before this maniac got into the White House. Or we must prepare for a political revolution that will up end the entire power structure.    

I say BS. 

First, let’s address the easy one – status quo. This argument says that our next presidential candidate must be “acceptable” to the Trump voters who flipped in the 2016 election. That a woman, or a person of color, or a socialist will doom the election and cause Trump to continue his reign of terror for four more years. Joe Biden…now there is a guy who has “favorables” with those middle-class white guys! He’s a safe bet. It’s in the bag. 

1) It’s not in the bag. As a matter of fact, the chances of the Democrats losing the election are pretty high if we back Joe. Joe says stupid things often. Joe has 20^thCentury ideas about how the world works and they do not stand the test of time. And let’s be honest, Trump is going to get under Joe’s skin early and never let up. The most telling indicator that Joe Biden is the wrong candidate is that he’s the one that Trump WANTS to run against. 

2)  There never was a status quo. The ACA, Dodd Frank, The Iran Nuclear Deal, diplomatic relations with Cuba, Gay Marriage, DACA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are just a few of the advancements of the Obama Administration. Even as armchair progressives were complaining that Obama was “a disappointment”, he was quietly up ending the status quo pretty well in my opinion.  

3) Trump is not an aberration. Trump is the culmination of years of reactionary actions by right wing conservatives. He’s the counter revolution, pushing back on everything that has happened in America since 1968. 

We need to continue the “revolution” – a term that I have come to despise as I will explain later in this essay – not go back to the status quo.  

So…what have I got against revolution? Plenty. 

Let’s take a hard look at history. I think I would be stating the obvious to assert that the rich and powerful have controlled most of the wealth as well as the fates of most humans across the vast span of history.  Even the founding of America was a rich man’s boondoggle. We call it a revolution, but actually it was executed by a cadre of rich lawyers and plantation owners for their own gain. Don’t get me wrong. I think America is a truly noble experiment and that we have taken many actions that make for a more perfect union. I consider myself a patriot who thinks America, warts and all, is the greatest human achievement in government and culture ever achieved. But all the advances that have been made in the last 243 years have not fulfilled the freedom and citizenship promised by the Constitution. 

We have never had a revolution in America and we never will.

The amendments to the constitution that granted citizenship to people of color and women; the laws and rulings that have provided you with many of the protections that keep you safe and free, were accomplished by a small group of committed and hard-working patriots. They worked hard. They suffered many setbacks. But they endured and overcame the powerful and the rich who have always held the reins of power in this country. Through force of will and perseverance, they made us a better country. A more perfect union. 

In the late 60’s there was the promise of revolution. Young Americans were told that many of the old, hypocritical ways of their parents would be swept away. The times they are a changin'.  Well, that not only didn’t work out so well, it caused a lot of people to be bitter. It caused a lot of people to claim that it was all a lie. That nothing ever changes. 

I can stand here in 2019 and look back on 1968 and state without reservation that many changes promised in the 60’s have been achieved. I can also state that those changes – again – were made by a small group of dedicated patriots. People who worked hard and overcame adversity. 

Are things better? Damn right they are. Is there more work to do? Damn right there is. 

Progress will always be a guerilla action. The rich and powerful will always reassert their power. There will be no revolution and to believe that there will be is a clear road to failure. Margaret Mead was right when she said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”.

Are you a member of that small group? We happy few? Are you willing to sign on? 

You see…you can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to show up.

Register. 

Vote. 

Agitate.

A More Perfect Union #4 Censure and Move On

A More Perfect Union 

#4 Censure and Move On

"Congress must Immediately Censure President Clinton and Move On to pressing issues facing the country."

This was the original call to action from the organization that is now known as Moveon.org. At the time of its launch, there were 20 sites for “Impeach Clinton”.  Scott Lauf's impeachclinton.org website had already delivered 60,000 petitions to Congress. Arianna Huffington, then a right-wing commentator, had collected 13,303 names on her website, resignation.com, which called on Clinton to resign. It was a different time. 

I am highlighting this little bit of history to illustrate my point that an “Impeach Trump” campaign is a colossally bad idea. Obviously, the Republicans did not take the advice of a newly formed left-wing political action committee, but they should have. 

The Clinton trial in the United States Senate began right after the seating of the 106th Congress, in which the Republican Party held 55 Senate seats. A two-thirds vote (67 senators) was required to remove Clinton from office. 50 senators voted to remove Clinton on the obstruction of justice charge and 45 voted to remove him on the perjury charge; no member of his own Democratic Party voted guilty on either charge. Clinton, like Andrew Johnson a century earlier, was acquitted on all charges. 

To be clear, no president has ever been convictedof the charges of “high crimes and misdemeanors” by the Senate. It has never happened.  

67 senators are needed to convict a sitting president. If pursued in the next 2 years, that would mean you would need ALL 47 democrats (Hi Joe Manchin!), both independents (Hi Angus!) and a minimum of 18 Republican senators to vote to convict the president and remove him from office. Yea, THAT’S going to happen. NOT! 

Which brings me to the original call to action that was made by Move On – Censure. Censure is “a formal, and public, group condemnation of an individual, often a group member, whose actions run counter to the group's acceptable standards for individual behavior”.

Like a reprimand, a censure does not remove a member from their office, so they retain their title, stature, and power to vote. There are also no legal consequences that come with a reprimand or censure. The main difference is that a reprimand is "considered a slap on the wrist and can be given in private and even in a letter", while a censure is "a form of public shaming in which the politician must stand before his peers to listen to the censure resolution".

In 1834, the Senate censured Democratic President Andrew Jackson for withholding documents relating to his actions in defunding the Bank of the United States. 

In 1842, Whigs attempted to impeach President John Tyler following a long period of hostility with the president. When that action could not get through Congress, a select Senate committee censured Tyler instead.

In 1848, the United States House of Representatives voted to censure President James K. Polk, on the grounds that the Mexican–American War had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States."

So, let’s talk about Trump and censure. The issue most in the news today are the payoffs to porn stars the president has been accused of. Impeachable offense? I don’t know, maybe. Would he be convicted and removed? Not a chance.

Clinton treated women poorly. Clinton lied. But if you didn’t know that he had slept with Jennifer Flowers after the 60 Minutes interview, you were not paying attention. Trump treats women poorly. If you didn’t know that after the Access Hollywood tape, you were not paying attention. Censure made sense for Clinton as well as for Trump.

I recommend that the House of Representatives censure Trump for the offence of “paying off porn stars to keep quiet about his affairs with them while running a presidential campaign which hid important information about his character from the voting public and was in violation of applicable laws”. 

And move on to pressing issues facing the country. 

If there has ever been a public figure who deserves to be subjected to "a form of public shaming in which the politician must stand before his peers”, it would be Donald Trump. 

If this action was taken, it could be done rather quickly after the Congress is sworn in. There would be a vote, a news story, copies of the censure would be printed in every paper in the land and Trump would have to face the consequences of his actions in the public square. And although I don’t want Congress to do this every month for the next 2 years, I suspect there will be other issues in which this will be appropriate. I am all for a censure for the violations of the emoluments clause when the court case reaches a place where conclusions may be inferred. And I’m sure Robert Mueller has a few censure worthy issues in his final report. 

Like Bob Dylan said: 

Even the President of the United States 

Sometimes must have to stand naked. 

Have you ever thought about how long ago your human rights were articulated and accepted as law? The history of human rights is brief. There are only a few major documents that mark the milestones in the development of human rights. They are: 

The Cyrus Cylinder (539 B.C.)

In 539 B.C., Cyrus the Great conquered the city of Babylon. He freed the slaves, declared that all people had the right to choose their own religion, and established racial equality. 

The Magna Carta (1215)

Signed by King John of England, the Magna Carta gave the church the right to be free from governmental interference, the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit property and to be protected from excessive taxes. It established the right of widows who owned property to choose not to remarry, and established principles of due process and equality before the law.

Petition of Right (1628)

The Petition of Right asserted four principles: (1) No taxes may be levied without consent of Parliament, (2) No subject may be imprisoned without cause shown, (3) No soldiers may be quartered upon the citizenry, and (4) Martial law may not be used in time of peace.

United States Declaration of Independence (1776)

Constitution of the United States of America (1787) 

Bill of Rights (1791)

As a citizen of this country, I assume you understand the great leap forward these documents meant in the development of the human race. 

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)

The Declaration proclaims that all citizens are to be guaranteed the rights of “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression”, showing that the French were simply following our lead. 

The First Geneva Convention (1864)

Geneva Conventions provided for the obligation to extend care without discrimination to wounded and sick military personnel and respect for and marking of medical personnel transports and equipment with the distinctive sign of the red cross on a white background.

And finally, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

This document was adopted on December 10, 1948 – 70 years ago today. 

Read it. 

There should be a link to the document as the first entry in this Facebook post. 

The first 20 articles are restatements of rights that have been generally adopted (in word, though maybe not in deed) throughout the modern world. Although Article 14 discusses a hot topic in our world today…

“Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”.

But once you get past the first 20, some very important and innovative concepts are articulated. 

Article 21 is about how humans should govern themselves.   

“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures”. 

Article 22 speaks to the dignity of each individual  

“Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality”. 

Article 23 articulates the rights of workers and the goal of all citizens to an “existence worthy of human dignity”.  

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. 
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. 
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. 

And Article 25 is a remarkable statement. In 1948, the world set a goal to developing a world by which the standard of living would be adequate for all citizens.  

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control”. 

How did we lose our way? Why are these not the issues we strive to fulfill? 

Many will decry this document as globalist bunk and a threat to our national sovereignty. I consider that a non-issue. Why doesn’t the United States embrace this document to guide our domestic policy? This is my agenda! This is my aspirational vision for our country. My peers; those who I consider “like minded” could raise this document as a banner; a rally flag for a new birth of freedom, liberty and prosperity. 

The United States was the first human collective body to declare that the power to govern resides in the citizenry and not in God and the monarchy. That was less than 250 years ago. 

70 years ago, we adopted a Declaration of Universal Human Rights. It’s time for us to lead the world to the higher ground of true equality and fulfill the aspirations of that document.

#3 A More Perfect Union

Ranked-Choice Voting

In Maine’s 2^nddistrict, there was a historic election. Over 50% of the voters wanted Jared Golden, the Democrat, as their representative. 23,433 voters (8.2%) cast ballots for someone else as their first choice, but their candidate did not win so their second choice – Golden – got their votes. This result is exactly what the citizens of Maine intended when they passed a citizen’s initiative to implement ranked-choice voting. 

The loser, Bruce Poliquin, is attempting to overturn the election in the courts. The judge ruled in a preliminary action asking to stop the counting process that “I am not persuaded that the United States Constitution compels the Court to interfere with this most sacred expression of democratic will by enjoining the ballot counting process…”

Some call voting a right. Other insist it’s a privileged. I think the question is mute when we are talking about votes that have already been cast. The judges’ phrase “most sacred expression of democratic will” really works for me. Voting is an expression of the voters “will” and the ranked-choice option gives the voter greater power over the outcome of the election. Bravo! 

Bruce Poliquin has asked the courts to either declare him the winner because he had a plurality in the first round or declare the election void and hold another election. Our local paper reported that “in a written statement” Bruce Poliquin’s campaign talked about “frightened” voters as well as the use of “artificial Intelligence” and “black box” voting systems to decide the outcome of the race. They say the computer algorithm is “secret” and thus not transparent.  

What is funny is I can’t find the written statement. I have Googled it and I have the whole internet at my disposal and no matter what I try, I can’t find the original document. I have looked at the campaign website and the congressional website, but no copy of the statement. I find that odd. 

Maine passed the ranked-choice option in 2016. The state Supreme Court ruled, preliminarily, that because of a specific statement in our constitution using the word “plurality” for the governor’s race, using ranked-choice in that election would probably be ruled unconstitutional. The legislature, in a perfect example of overreach, voided the whole initiative and passed legislation that said if the constitution was not amended by 2021, the law would just…go away. Voters then placed an initiative to REPEAL the legislative action in front of the voters and won in June of 2018.  

Ranked-choice voting has been utilized to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives since the 1919 federal election. That would be before computers, artificial intelligence or black boxes. They had algorithms – an algorithm is “a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation”.  It’s pretty simple. Your ballot has boxes to the left of the candidates’ names. You are to “rank” the candidates. 1) is the person you want to represent you. 2) would be your next choice if 1) does not reach 51%. 3) 4) 5) and so on would be your other choices in order of preference. The candidates with the lowest number of votes are eliminated and the second-choice votes are allocated. This continues until one candidate reaches 51%. It’s simple arithmetic. 

In the 2^nddistrict election, the voters used their sacred expression of democratic will – and simple arithmetic – to elect the true representative of that district. 

In order to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, the election of representatives that truly reflect the majority of the electorate is essential. Any action to restrict a citizens’ democratic will is an affront to the Founding Fathers and the entire spirit of the republic. Now that Democrats have won a number of seats in Congress and overturned a number of governorships, our next goal will be extending the franchise to voters who are being suppressed by legislative actions that are contrary to logic and common practice. We must take the process of redistricting away from representatives who would use their power to subvert and undermine the elective process through gerrymandering and put that power in the hands of a non-partisan commission. We must fight the administrations’ action to subvert the 2020 census with a citizenship question that will cause people who are living here from not being counted. And we must continue the work of registering citizens and getting them to the polls. 

The 2020 election is more than just a presidential year. It will also put in place the people who will reapportion the electorate based on the 2020 census. 

In many ways, that is far more important than who is elected president. 

TAX THE RICH

There has been a lot of hoopla lately about the Maine tax rate from the Governor. If you have been reading the papers, you would have been told that Maine has a very high tax rate, second only to California’s. That sounded sort of off to me – so I did some investigation.

First – let’s get this out of the way. Yes – Maine has the second highest tax rate for people making over $200,000.00 per year. The referendum voted on in November tacked on a fourth bracket to our tax system. See the chart below.

Maine - Single Tax Brackets

Tax Bracket           Tax Rate

$0.00+                    5.8%

$21,049.00+       6.75%

$37,499.00+       7.15%

200,000.00+       10.15%

That means that 16,000 Maine residents (approximately) will pay a rate of 10.15% on their income OVER the $200,000.00 level. All Mainers pay 5.8% on the first $21,049.00 of income and it goes up from there. Now, if you lived in Idaho and had an income over a mere $10,890.00, the tax rate is 7.4%, so keep in mind that all the states have unique ways of raising revenue.

Let’s look at some of the other tax rates in the USA.

In DC, the highest rate is 8.95%

Hawaii, it’s 8.25%

Idaho, it’s 7.4%

Iowa, it’s 8.98%

Minnesota, it’s 9.85%

New York, it’s 8.82%

Oregon, it’s 9.9%

Vermont, it’s 8.95%

Wisconsin, it’s 7.65%

And in California, the highest individual income tax rate is 13.3%. Actually, in California, poor people pay a much lower tax rate that the poor folks in Maine. Check out the chart. 

In California, folks making below 30K pay LESS tax than Mainers. And until you get to the 200K mark, Mainers pay less than Californians. So – it’s not as straight forward a comparison as presented in the papers or by the Governor. 

The Governor is convinced that our tax rate is destroying our ability to attract new industry to the state. Apparently, the “job creators” get spooked when the tax rate goes over a certain level. But wait a minute…how does California do so well with such a high tax rate? California – boy, wouldn’t Maine love to have just 20% of California’s economic activity! Wouldn’t that be GREAT! All those tech companies, the film industry, the aerospace industry – and all that agriculture! Wow!

So why does California have all this economic activity? Well, California is COOL! It’s got all this cool stuff – a great coastline, tons of culture, great food, wine and awesome outdoor activities – people want to work there. Wait a minute. Maine has all that….

So, I propose that the tax rate has some effect on whether an industry chooses to locate in a particular state, but it may not be as important as the Governor wants you to think. I grew up in Fairfield County Connecticut which is right outside of New York City. For many years, companies moved out of Manhattan to Greenwich and Stamford Ct. and it had nothing to do with the tax rate. Some in depth research by the state showed that where the CEO lived had more to do with where the company moved than anything else. If you lived in Dairen or New Canaan, you moved your business to Stamford – just a short drive over the hill from your house. In you lived in Summit New Jersey, you moved your business to New Jersey.

The governors low tax plan is designed to make us competitive with Alabama or Mississippi (or Mexico), so that somebody will move a plant that builds F-150 trucks to Maine. Not only is that a pipe dream, but I know I don’t want to live in a state as poor as Mississippi. I have a better plan. Let’s convince the CEO’s of the software companies and biotech firms in Cambridge and Boston that Portland is just as hip and cool as their towns.  It’s not as crowded, their employees would have a better standard of living and they would all be closer to skiing, hiking and some of the best sailing on the East Coast. This should not be a hard sell – I’m sure they have all vacationed here at least once.

Still worried about those “job creators”? Don’t be. A report generated by the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan department of the US legislature, stated very clearly in 2012 that low taxes has little or no effect on economic activity. Here is a quote from the report:

“There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. The evidence does not suggest necessarily a relationship between tax policy with regard to the top tax rates and the size of the economic pie, but there may be a relationship to how the economic pie is sliced”.

Are you wondering why you have not heard of this 2012 report? Because the Senate Republicans suppressed it. Tax the rich – it won’t hurt and will most likely help our economy and allow more people to thrive. Not just rich people – all people.