Sorry bears, shame on Maine

 

Very sorry and ashamed that Maine voted to continue to bait, trap, and use dogs to kill bears. This is not hunting, it's animal cruelty. In this day and age I'm sure that we could up with another alternative to limit bear population growth without resorting to such inhumane methods. Shame on you all who voted to preserve this practice.

Please save Maine

 

"...just three people have been reported injured by black bears in Maine over the past 30 years." http://bangordailynews.com/2010/09/15/outdoors/bear-attacks-unusual-but-not-unknown/

End the cruelty of bait, dogs, and traps. This is not hunting, not justified, and just plain wrong! Vote YES on November 4th on question 1.

And also, please save Maine from four more years of Paul LePage.

Thank you!

BEING SINGLEDOUT IN MAINE?

In the proposed budget for the State of Maine:

Budget facts

This two-year budget would levy a 2% personal income tax on teachers and state employees and cut benefits for retirees for a cost of $203 million. At the same time, the state would provide $200 million in tax cuts for business. A reasonable conclusion is that public employees are paying for the tax cuts.
Under full implementation of the governor's proposed income and estate tax changes, approximately half the benefits would go to the wealthiest 10% of taxpayers. The proposals would:
Eliminate the state alternative minimum tax, which today helps to ensure that wealthy taxpayers pay their fair share.
Lower the tax rate on incomes above about $50,000 from 8.5% to 7.95%.
Double from $1 million to $2 million the size of estates exempt from the estate tax – giving millions of dollars in tax breaks to Maine's wealthiest 550 families.
Fully implemented, over 80% of the benefits of proposed tax changes go to taxpayers with incomes greater than $63,648 at a cost to the state of $203 million in the coming biennium.
If this income tax is imposed, Maine average teacher salary would decline from 44th in the country to 49th.

Hope for a bipartisan solution

Educators say they are willing to help the state through a temporary cash flow crunch, but are unwilling to be the political scapegoat sacrificed to appease the Tea Party. The hope for rebuffing this retirement lies with finding a bipartisan solution.

NO TEA FOR ME.

Neither Maine nor the nation needs the Paul LePage’s of the world. Time to dump the Tea Party into the harbor. Maine has a long tradition of independence but it also cares for its people. LePage, and it seems all Tea Party minded candidates, would return us to an era of survival of the fittest. Under the guise of less spending and reduced regulations, their ideas do nothing but give big business free reign to continue to rape and plunder the middle class.

Maine’s unemployment is around 50, 000. LePage wants to layoff 6-7,000 teachers. That’s a real economic benefit. Just what we need, more people searching for scarce jobs, more lost homes and higher welfare needs.  But wait, they also want to cut welfare and put the ‘lazy bums’ back to work. Where? Yes, there are abusers of the welfare system and programs to get rid of ‘welfare lifers’ who could otherwise work makes sense. But, there are many with legitimate needs and in Maine, we used to care for those who need help. But I suppose it is easy to pick on the poor! What is totally illogical is that LePage wants to cut support for the University system, Community Colleges, and K-12. Stop that train. How will reductions in the very systems that are needed for an intelligent work force going to attract jobs? LePage further wants to abolish the State Department of Education thereby cutting off access to millions of dollars. Hang that phone up, Mr. LePage. Those are my tax dollars coming back to Maine. Why would I want them going to who knows where?

While mouthing support for alternative and renewable energy, LePage and the Tea Party are big supporters of more offshore oil drilling and nuclear power. Just what the Gulf of Maine needs, oil rigs run by the likes of BP and nuclear power that produces radioactive waste good for at least several hundred thousand years. Hell, the U.S can’t safely dispose of the waste it has now, what sense is it to add to the problem?

Everyone likes to hear phrases like reduce government spending, give tax cuts, fight the bureaucrats, and get government off our backs. If history is any indicator, the tax cuts benefit the wealthiest; reduced regulation means let’s not worry about oil spills; and, getting government off our backs means let the large corporations do what they want. And to date, what they want is to send their jobs overseas and pay slave wages.

What will really attract jobs to Maine? A clean environment, an educated work force, quality services, modern infrastructure and fewer damn potholes will help bring jobs to Maine. These things cost money and to think you will have them by just cutting taxes, dumping on government workers, and firing teachers is ludicrous! These same people don’t want to extend unemployment benefits, deny retirees benefit increases, take free choice away from women and slam the poor and unemployed because they got shafted by big business. This is not what Maine is about and it is not what America is about. Do we need changes and improvements and politicians who do not placate themselves to the rich and powerful? Of course! But we don’t need politicians who claim to be for the middle class but whose policies would continue to destroy the very people they hope will vote for them. No ‘tea’ for me, no tea for Maine and no tea for the nation. We are a country of coffee drinkers and hopefully the electorate is bright enough to understand that.

RELIGIONS SHOULD STAY OUT OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LAWS

On May 6th, Governor Baldacci of Maine signed into law a bill allowing same sex marriage. The Governor said, “I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.” He went on to say, “This new law does not force any religion to recognize a marriage that falls outside of its beliefs, it does not require the church to perform any ceremony with which it disagrees. Instead, it reaffirms the separation of church and state.”

Does this put the matter to rest in the State of Maine? Unfortunately, no. “We feel he kind of shortchanged us all,” said The Rev. Bob Emrich, pastor of Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church in Plymouth and a founder of the Maine Marriage Alliance, which opposes the law. “But that’s his prerogative. He’s the governor.” According to AP writer Glenn Adams, Marc Mutty of the Roman Catholic Diocese said challengers expect to get the go-ahead by May 21 to begin collecting signatures to get a referendum on the bill, which was signed Wednesday by Gov. John Baldacci. The Maine Jeremiah Project, a church based public policy group and The National Association of Marriage Enhancement are starting a petition drive to get the issue on the November ballot as a referendum question.

In my opinion, these church groups should really mind their own business! If church and state are to be separate, as provided by our Constitution, then they should stick to their own concerns rather than trying to foist their ‘worn out dogma’ on others. Nothing in this bill requires them to conduct same sex marriages. They can continue to do practice their faith as they so choose. The fact that they are trying to force their values on others is just another example of the evils of organized religion. Why must everyone live the way they want people to live? Why must they insist that they are right and everyone else is wrong? There are other religions belief systems and that is why separation is guaranteed. One could easily argue that the state should not accept religious marriage ceremonies as legal unless it is accompanied by a civil union as well. Why should marriage be only what these religious leaders claim it should be?

Yes, we are one nation under God, but we are not one nation under the Baptist or Catholic version of God. Christians need to get off this ‘everyone must believe as we do’ train. This attitude has caused the world way too much suffering and strife and division. Christianity is perhaps the only religion that purposely sets out to force others to act in its own image. Maybe if religions practiced the true meaning of their teachings and acted with tolerance, love and compassion towards others, the world just might be a safer place.

"YOU CAN'T GET THEY'AH FROM HE'AH"

If a tourist asks a Down-easterner from Maine directions, he might be told, “You can’t get they’ah from he’ah.” This phrase was popularized by the infamous Bert and I created by the late Marshall Dodge in the late 50’s. Try to ask anyone what it means and you will get as many answers as respondents. The definition I will use is that “the road you are on won’t take you where you want to go.”

President Obama has a new vision for America but we must understand that the road we are on will not take us where we want to go. The paradigm we cling too will not manifest the new vision. Take a look at the economy. The efforts by former

President Bush were to stay the course and give more money, our money, to the very institutions that generated the crisis. While President Obama seems to have a better grasp of the true nature of problem, we are still talking about giving more money to those same institutions. You simply cannot get economic recovery on that road. Simply put, people do not need more credit. It is the abuse of credit lending institutions that is the genesis of the problem. How is the average American helped if they go deeper into debt? The real problem is that we cannot get rid of our bills because of the high interest rates for credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and the like. You pay and pay but the balance never goes down. This road is a dead end for the consumer.

President Obama’s vision is unattainable if we insist on travelling on a road that will not get us they’ah. Peace in the Middle East will not be achieved by travelling on the same road. We will not have universal health coverage by travelling the same road. We will not manifest the idea of ‘love thy neighbor’ by travelling the worn out religious road. We will not educate our children by travelling the same road. To achieve the new vision we need a new paradigm, a change in the fundamental thought process. The President talked about “worn out dogma.” He gets it. But, do the pundits, economists, educators, health workers, environmentalists or the consumer get it? It is not just a matter of doing business as usual; it is about a whole new business. You can only fix an old car for so long and then it fundamentally breaks down. Pills and wasted surgery will only hold off the pain or disease for so long; then the body breaks down. You can only preach righteousness for so long while you allow genocide, strife and poverty and then the system breaks down. You can talk a good deal about reducing carbon emissions and about alternative energy, but the system is breaking down. The old patches and band-aids are no longer functional, they are worn out and the bleeding is showing on the gauze.

We do not need to talk about sacrifice. That is also a ‘worn out dogma.’ What it really means is that you and I have to suffer while the heads of corporations get bonuses and expensive retreats. The old paradigm says that if you sacrifice, maybe your children will have a better life. Sorry, that worked for several thousands of years, but it is worn out. There are no shortages of money. There are no shortages of ideas. There are no shortages of job potential. There are no shortages of knowledge to convey to our school children. There are only shortages if we believe in them and, the ‘worn out dogma’ wants you to believe in them. That has been their “Secret.”

Just the other day I received in the mail numerous requests by banks offering to give me all kinds of credit. We still see the ads for new cars, pills for scores of new dysfunctions and enticements to invest in this or that fund. Religions are issuing new lists of sins, stirring up old hatreds, and condemning any action that even hints of free choice. This is worn out dogma. Sociologists say we need to break the cycle of poverty. The new paradigm says we need to create a cycle of prosperity. The worn out dogma says we need to preserve the jobs of auto workers. The new paradigm says we need to employ people in new modes of getting people and goods from point ‘a’ to point ‘b.’ The old way is to search for new oil and gas. The new way is to say we need to develop new, sustaining, non-polluting forms of energy. The old way says take a pill. The new way says to focus on a healthy body, mind and spirit. The old way says to go to church every Sunday. The new paradigm says that wherever you are, you are on holy ground.

If we truly want change, we must abandon the old roads. They have taken us to this point, but as any Mainer will tell you, filling the potholes does not last very long. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and tear up the old raid and build a new one because “you can’t they’ah from he’ah.”