Commentary: This trickle-down stinks

Published in the Portland Phoenix

True free-market capitalism has lasted 30 years — barely half as long as its arch-enemy, Soviet communism. It began with Reagan chipping away at the social contract that bound us all together as fellow Americans, as human beings. Now, as funds "saved" by slashing programs for regular people are handed off to megamillionaire plutocrats as tax breaks, we can see clearly that the winner-take-all philosophy has bankrupted America morally, just as surely as it has punished her people financially.

That realization is taking hold among the rich — recent MarketWatch and Vanity Fair columns warn of dire consequences if the wealthiest one percent continue to neglect the suffering of the masses. The rest of us must now drive this point home. The risks if we do not are clear: Republicans in the US House of Representatives have just suggested slashing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — without canceling a dime's worth of tax breaks for the uber-rich.

As tax day, April 15, approaches, it is obvious that we live in an era of taxation without representation. The government takes money from the working class — the only people left who do not get massive tax breaks — and makes decisions that serve only the wealthy few.

Today, with endless war and limitless profiteering, America is in crisis. The Reagan-esque "trickle-down theory" appears ascendant, as politicians on left and right alike dole out government handouts to the wealthy and the corporations they own, while simultaneously eliminating government help for those who are the neediest. The stated promise — the vain hope — is that the rich will reinvest in America, creating jobs and thereby spreading wealth to everyone.

But we know that's not working — for decades now, America has been stripped of her wealth, her workers left to rising unemployment, their homes foreclosed upon, their children's schools gutted.

Self-serving politicians have co-opted the Tea Party movement, turned it into a pawn, a shill for corporate interests. The crowds that attend Tea Party rallies obviously do not realize that they are in a very real way demanding to pay higher taxes and receive fewer services, so that corporations can boost profits. Tea Party orators promote destruction of the social safety net that keeps children from starving, the elderly from freezing, and the poor from dying in the swamp of need. It is time for a return to the real Tea Partiers' values, for us to refuse to pay up without a voice in how our collective riches are allotted.

In Wisconsin, in Ohio, and in Maine, working people are finally standing up and reaffirming the true American ideal, one that generations grew up working to achieve: that we are all members of the same community, who thrive or perish together. We should not tolerate a nation in which corporations and the ultra-rich tread on the poor and middle classes, exploiting them by depriving them of fair pay, humane working conditions, and a decent education.

As the greedy, the heartless, and the power-crazed grow in influence, the American dream is turning into a nightmare. It is already a bad dream for far too many.

The real American dream — the one millions of Americans died striving for, perished protecting, and still work for today — is far from perfect. Still, it is a world in which some corporations are socially responsible, in which some of the wealthy recognize their private fortunes are built on the skills of the many, in which some of the privileged exercise what used to be called noblesse oblige but today goes by the name of public responsibility.

The real America is a nation in which every person has an equal chance to better his or her life, and by so doing also betters the lives of everyone around them. It is a nation in which we help our neighbors in need — knowing that when our day of need comes they will help us.

Today, as I prepare to pay my taxes to a government that does not represent my interests, I'm angry — and not just at the politicians and corporations. I'm angry at those who voted for Bush, for McCain — even, it seems, for Obama. We are complicit in our own ruin at the hands of the robber barons.

Now is a crucial moment for us to change course. The privileged, who have already achieved their fortunes by hook or by crook, seek to bar the door to us, to deny us our dreams forever.

It is time for us to stand up and tell the wealthy what, in fact, is trickling down on us from up there, where they sit, comfortable on their thrones. It is not prosperity, nor even opportunity. It's something very rudely different. And this trickle-down stinks.

Press releases: Build on each other

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Why is that when one Maine news outlet breaks a big story, the others spend more energy trying to copy it, rather than extend it? Take the most recent example, the labor mural dispute.

Governor Paul LePage's remarks and actions about the historical mural at the Maine Department of Labor office in Augusta are indeed newsworthy.

But after more than two weeks of non-stop coverage by Maine reporters, serious — and obvious — questions remain. We still don't know where the murals are, whether any actual business leaders disliked them, whether their removal was legal (a question now before a federal court), why they were removed so abruptly, nor why the governor later said he wished his removal order hadn't been followed so quickly.

These unanswered questions highlight a strange phenomenon of Maine journalism, which I have observed throughout the course of many years as a reporter and editor here.

In a competitive media environment, publications don't worry about getting the scoop a competitor had yesterday — they care about getting the news that hasn't been told yet. If someone gets a big break, other reporters swarm to the topic, seeking to build on that original story. Only rarely does this involve on-the-ground cooperation; mostly, reporters believe in the integrity of the competition, and bring their own resources to bear, driving deeper into the heart of an issue.

Maine has what might be called a passive-cooperative media environment, where media outlets don't acknowledge each other — for good or ill. Perhaps that's to avoid making the others look bad. But in the process, they make themselves weaker, and hurt the public interest.

As a contrary example, look at the New York Times-Washington Post relationship: They regularly scoop each other on topics both papers cover, such as national security. If the Times breaks a story, the Post will develop additional sources and insights to move the story forward, and will often make its basis explicit, saying in an early paragraph, "the New York Times reported X." By expanding on the information someone else has already reported, the Post can get a better, deeper, more insightful story. The Times will respond by building on the Post's reporting. Readers — whether they read one paper, the other, or both — learn lots more, very quickly.

That's not the case in Maine. Here, editors act as if their readers don't look at any other sources of news. So if the Press Herald, the Sun Journal, or the Bangor Daily News gets something good today, you can bet that tomorrow's editions of the other papers will have that story. But don't expect anything else. We see this in the coverage of the mural mess. Despite the massive reporting effort by the State House press corps (and the Press Herald was not the only paper to assign extra reporters to cover different angles), none of Maine's daily papers got anything substantially different from what any other paper had.

The basics still remain unknown. The problem is easily fixed, if only Maine media outlets would acknowledge that somebody has already covered some turf, and decide to move the entire story forward. Instead, busy covering what was already known, none of them bothered to figure out what the next question was, nor determine its answer.

• Another casualty of all this coverage of the mural controversy is news about WHAT ELSE WENT ON IN THE STATE HOUSE LAST WEEK. This is an administration and legislative majority with big plans to make big changes in Maine's governance — and while they likely didn't plan this particular massive distraction, key players are definitely poised to take advantage when the media spotlight turns away. Someone in the State House press corps should have the sense not to follow the pack, and to look in the dark corners others neglect.

Gubernatorial scorecard: What's behind the curtain?

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Here's our third Gubernatorial Scorecard, in which we score Governor Paul LePage on political savvy, and on whether what he's trying to do is good policy. Note the running total.

VEILED LOBBYING | LePage tried to create a "business advisory council," to allow key players in the state's economic scene to have direct access to the governor. After a statewide public and media outcry because LePage exempted the group entirely from the state's open-government law, the governor scrapped the idea.
POLITICS • Promoting transparency during the campaign turns to secrecy in office | 2/10 POLICY • He can still meet secretly with whomever he likes; this just avoids a fight about it | 7/10

VEILED THREATS | The governor has threatened to veto the budget if it changes from his proposals, despite the facts that 1) a two-thirds majority must pass the budget (automatically overriding any veto), and 2) compromise is the only way to get two-thirds support and avoid a government shutdown.
POLITICS • Shutting down the government is what his base really wants | 9/10 POLICY • Shows misunderstanding of the system | 1/10

VEILED HISTORY | The governor, on the basis of an anonymous note likening Maine to North Korea, ordered a huge mural in the Department of Labor office removed, saying the depictions of Maine's labor history were anti-business. The move spawned a satirical call for art from this newspaper (see below) and a real one from the state, as well as a scathing Sunday editorial in the New York Times and local and national media coverage mocking LePage for whitewashing reality.
POLITICS • Proves he'll do absolutely anything to promote jobs in Maine | 6/10 POLICY • This is his biggest pro-business move so far | 1/10

VEILED INFLUENCES | The governor celebrated the erection of an "Open for Business" sign at the Maine-New Hampshire border on I-95. The sign was made in Texas. And a couple of his campaign staffers launched a pro-LePage website, MainePeopleBeforePolitics.com. It's hosted in Utah.
POLITICS • Offers opponents easy distraction while his real agendas move forward | 8/10 POLICY • Needlessly thoughtless | 2/10

VEILED ACCESS | The famously mercurial, bullying governor promotes his open-door policy, welcoming anyone who wishes to speak with him. And yet he has posted a uniformed state trooper in his waiting room — in addition to his plainclothes bodyguard squad.
POLITICS • Job-creation success: one state trooper | 7/10 POLICY • Unclear whether the protection is for him, or from him | 4/10

This month's total | Politics 32/50 | Policy 15/50 | Last month: 32/50 | Policy 28/50 | Overall: Politics 88/150 | Policy 62/150

City walls: A look at Portland's graffiti history

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Back in the early '90s, Eli Cayer had just finished art school in Boston and headed to Maine, where he continued creating street art. In a scene then heavy on "throw-ups," tags with an artist's nickname in stylized letters, Cayer had another approach. "Instead of going to do throw-ups, I'd just do faces."

In the mid- to late '90s, Cayer was a busy, visible street artist in Portland. But one night, he recalls, he was arrested while leaving a nightclub. He spent the night in jail, and was later sentenced to a week behind bars.

The experience set him on a course to create legal opportunities for graffiti artists and other street artists to show off their wares. Promoting work "inspired by the street, inspired by the youth, inspired by emerging cultures," Cayer organized events — including an "Urban Earth Day" celebration — that included spray-painting activities as part of the entertainment. He wanted people to "recognize it as a legitimate art form," he says.

That led to contact with city workers, in both the community-policing and parks-and-recreation departments, which in turn connected him with officials at the Portland Water District's East End Wastewater Treatment Facility. As Cayer described how murals, particularly those influenced by street art, can actually "graffiti-proof" a wall (by showcasing the work of prominent artists younger taggers will be reluctant to paint over), an idea took hold: the outside wall of the sewage plant could be a place for graffiti artists to do their work legally.

The idea was that vandalism would decrease if the city would just "allow the artistic side of it, encourage it even" by providing places for people to practice and engage with street art, Cayer says.

He says that containing or institutionalizing graffiti doesn't necessarily change the nature of the art — and if it does, it does so organically, rather than forcing the change on the artist. "The hard-core writer, even given the opportunity to do a (legal) jam, it's not going to change what he's doing on the street," Cayer says. But others might take an opportunity to expand their expression while also reducing legal risks. "It's almost the . . . equivalent of skateboarding," Cayer explains: "It's not organized, it's totally self-driven, it's what you make of it."

On June 4, 2002 — Cayer recalls the date easily — that section of the wall was unveiled at the same time as a newly opened section of the Eastern Promenade trail. Ever since, that space has been known as the "legal wall," where anyone can go and practice their art. For a time, he also helped coordinate the painting of the Asylum wall every year.

Cayer, who is no longer active in the city's street art scene (though he stays in touch through MENSK, the arts-related non-profit he helps run), says he does see Portland's culture shifting somewhat from "exclusively spray-painting," to more varied types of street art. (That said, he notes that Portland's train-painters are very widely known: "I've seen Portland, Maine, trains in North Dakota" and Alabama.)

Aubin Thomas isn't a tagger or street artist either, but in the past year or so has turned into a chronicler of the ad-hoc art scene here, as what she calls "curator of images" at her Freezetagging blog (freezetagging.wordpress.com).

"I don't ever pretend to know what it's like to be a tagger" — she only tags on blackboards — but wants to preserve the art so it's not lost. "There are wonderful pieces of art around here . . . but then they disappear," she says, so in an effort to counter that, she takes long walks around different parts of town every week to photograph what she sees.

She has noticed a number of fascinating elements of the street-art community in Portland. "They talk to each other around the city," she says, leaving notes asking "who's this?" near a new tag, or incorporating elements in new creations that echo nearby pieces by other artists.

Letter shapes, and color, and medium (marker, paint, etc.) are part of their language, giving knowledgeable viewers and scene insiders messages about who drew what.

Like in other cities, marking a particularly visible or hard-to-get-to area (such as high up on a building) is a declaration of prowess, but Thomas noted that Maine street artists have other challenges. Back in December, she was out taking photos in a blizzard, and saw a tag that called attention to when it was made: "Blizzard bombing," it read.

In the past six months, she has noticed more labels and stickers going up around the city, works people draw at home and just slap up somewhere as they're walking by. She theorizes that is part a reaction to a pending city crackdown (see "Outlawing Art?") and part desire to do more intricate pieces in a less-risky way.

Thomas is definitely appreciative of the efforts of local street artists: "It adds to the layers of things we have in the city to look at," she says. And she observes that the Portland Museum of Art held an event earlier this year focused on local graffiti and street artists.

Outlawing art?

After years of a moderate tolerance to graffiti artists, Portland officials are reconsidering that approach. The city council's Public Safety Committee has proposed increasing the punishments for graffiti artists. That has brought thinly veiled threats from the street-art community of retribution by increased activity.

A second controversial element of the proposal would fine property owners who do not clean up if their buildings are tagged. That has led to objections from people who worry that they might be "victimized twice" — once by graffiti, and a second time by the city enforcing the clean-it-up law.

The proposal would also ban the sale of "graffiti tools," such as markers and spray-paint cans, to minors. Aubin Thomas notes that might be missing the point: "All of the graffiti artists and taggers I know are not minors."

While proponents say tagging would be discouraged if it were removed quickly, that's less certain in an art form whose very nature assumes, and even embraces, temporary display.

Eli Cayer suggests that fighting graffiti is best done Montreal-style, where the city hosts international events celebrating street art and "the whole downtown is tattooed, almost, with graffiti."

"I want to live in a city where I see more of the productions" — larger, artistic pieces — he says. "Not everybody does, I can appreciate that, (but) just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't deserve respect."

Cayer cites as an example the new mural at Joe's Smoke Shop on Congress Street as a successful contribution of art to the community that also deters graffiti: "Joe's gets bombed all the time, and it's not going to now."

Broadband update: Internet service falling into place

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The details needed to understand where and how to best improve Maine's high-speed Internet connectivity are finally within reach. Even better, the funding and planning are under way. Three major developments have happened recently, and two more are on the horizon, that could hasten the dawn of a day in which Maine is no longer in the slow lane for Internet service.

The first development is THE BEGINNING OF WORK ON AN 1100-MILE FIBER-OPTIC NETWORK covering most of Maine. Called the "Three-Ring Binder" because it is designed with three interconnecting circles of fiber, the project, funded with private and state and federal government money. The network has six miles complete — including a section in downtown Portland — and when finished in two years' time will be open to any Internet provider as a super-high-speed link to the wider Internet. Key to this is that fiber-optic networking is largely considered "future-proof," meaning that as better transmission technologies develop over time, the fiber network itself will not need to be replaced or re-wired. Even though transmission equipment at connection points may need replacement, the money and time required is far less than re-creating an all-new network to parallel the old one.

The second development is the RELEASE OF A NATIONAL MAP OF BROADBAND ACCESS, complete with data on actual speed delivered by providers, number of companies offering Internet access in a particular area, and the means by which that access is provided (wireless mobile, cable-modem, DSL, etc.). In the words of Phil Lindley, executive director of the ConnectME Authority, the state agency tasked with expanding high-speed Internet access across Maine, "It's great to know where it is, but what's more important is for us to know where it isn't." Yes, the map shows empty spaces too — which will inform the selection process for the next round of ConnectME grants, to optimize investment in areas that most need help.

The third development is that NOBODY IS LOOKING TO FAIRPOINT COMMUNICATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP IN BROADBAND SERVICE anymore. The North Carolina-based company that operates the landline telephone network in Maine was expected to be a key element of providing 21st-century technology to rural parts of the state — and discussions of that prospect were key to state regulators' approval of the deal that allowed FairPoint to buy Verizon's landline system — even state officials now recognize that FairPoint is not a serious player.

While the company emerged from bankruptcy late last year, and did announce in January that it can provide faster-than-dialup service to 83 percent of Maine homes, the speed of FairPoint's service is the lowest that qualifies as "broadband" under state and federal guidelines. The company is still on its way to wiring up 87 percent of Maine homes by the end of 2014 — down from 90 percent, which was its original goal. As a sign of the times, though, if a proposal now before state officials moves forward, Maine's legal definition of the term may soon be accelerated, such that whatever FairPoint provides, it will be too slow to be labeled "broadband."

Coming up are two additional moves at the federal level with big promise for Maine. First is that the $8 billion annually raised by the Universal Service Fee (a surcharge on landline and cellphone bills alike) could be released to fund Internet expansion. At present, the fee is limited to supporting telephone service in rural areas, but bureaucrats are beginning to figure out that it's Internet access that is truly necessary everywhere in the country. A Federal Communications Commission decision on that could come later this year.

Also, the FCC is expected to release some additional radio spectrum for auction soon, with the goal that funds raised from the auction and most of the new bandwidth itself will go to reach 98 percent of Americans with Internet access at speeds five times faster than Maine's present minimum broadband speed.

For more info, check out broadbandmap.gov.