If anybody’s curious, below the fold are my first two statehouse columns. Focus was on the “Super Senators,” and the what’s at stake in the health care wrangling.

This week’s will focus on a couple different groups working in the Statehouse to get lawmakers to look at the state’s economy in different ways (and in different ways than each other).

1/8/2012 column:

The first week of the 2012 legislative session had a very distinct flavor from the first week of last year’s. As opposed to 2011’s sense of uncharted territory in the face of a new Governor, this year lawmakers, lobbyists, and activists all had a sense of the lay of the land, going into an election year where the battle lines are already being drawn.

As such, the week was dominated by message-sending. Political actors were moving with blazing speed to establish themselves either as policy agenda-setters, or as players who were not-to-be-ignored in the coming months. All of which suggests that the hopes of some to have a speedy session focused only on the budget and Irene rebuilding may not be realized.

Here are some examples:

Governor Shumlin’s State of the State Address. Many have already noted the exuberant delivery of the Governor’s address’s persistently positive “Vermont Strong” message. By acting as cheerleader-in-chief during the ongoing tropical storm recovery process, Shumlin can raise morale as well as remind Vermont voters of the universal acclaim he has received for the state’s response to the crisis.

But Shumlin also used the opportunity to lay down some lines in the sand to both sides of the political spectrum, and try to send the message that he intended to remain the sheriff in town. To the right, he made it clear that he would not deviate from those parts of his agenda they deplore – such as health care reform. To the left, he repeated his commitment to resist calls for increased taxes on wealthy Vermonters.

With the political capital he has accumulated in the disaster recovery process, he may well prove one tough sheriff indeed.

Senator Randy Brock. Brock, who is all but certain to be the Republican gubernatorial candidate in November, sent a clear message that he has no intention of allowing Shumlin to take the tax issue – which has long been the meat and potatoes of GOP electioneering – off the table. In citing last year’s increase of the Hospital Provider Tax, Brock is letting Shumlin know that he will challenge him as vigorously on taxation issues as he would any other Democrat.

Activists. It usually takes a few weeks of committee deliberations and bill-wrangling before the activists in various-colored shirts and buttons show up in the halls of the State House. This year they were there on Day One. Red-shirted supporters of the Vermont Workers’ Center were out in force, and coalesced around a noontime press conference.

The VWC worked hard on Shumlin’s behalf during the last election, focused as they were on the health care reform plan championed by the Governor. This year, however, they were there to make it clear that they could not be taken for granted. The red shirts in attendance loudly proclaimed their intention to muster what grassroots energy they could on behalf of a budget that would fund social programs adequately – even if that meant increased taxes on upper income citizens, putting them in potential conflict with Governor Shumlin.

Individual lawmakers. Lawmakers have been an orderly lot of late, but there are signs that may be changing.

Case in point: Senator Peter Galbraith (D-Windham). Galbraith – a prominent international diplomat – objected to a motion from Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell to move the issue of redistricting out of the Government Operations Committee and into a new committee specifically created to address the issue.

Galbraith raised eyebrows when he accused Campbell of not having “confidence” in the Gov Ops committee, even though the Senate took the same approach the last time redistricting came up.

Despite support for the move from Gov Ops Chair Jeanette White, Galbraith held firm and cast one of two votes against the move (the other was cast by Senator Anthony Pollina of Washington County).

Galbraith was sending a message. In his objection to the new committee, he took a swipe at “the old boys’ club who run the Senate.”

Everybody knew who he was talking about.

It’s an unwritten rule in the Senate that, to get anything done, you have to have one of four Senators on your side: Campbell, Senator Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle), Senator Vince Illuzzi (R-Essex-Orleans), or Senator Dick Sears (D-Bennington). Sears and Illuzzi sit on the new redistricting committee.

This is not to say that those four “Super-Senators” always get their way, but there is a clear hierarchy in the Senate, and those four inhabit a stratum all their own. It is a situation many of the newer members bristle at.

Galbraith’s message (as well as the message sent by Chittenden Senator Philip Baruth in casting the lone vote to overturn a gubernatorial veto the same morning): don’t expect me to obediently do what I’m told this year.

All told, Vermonters may be in for a lively legislative season.

1/15/2012 column

Capitol Notebook

Week of 1-15-2011

John Odum

Week two of the legislative session saw the players, agendas, and actual bills starting to take shape. From the controversial (S.134 decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana) to the consensus (S.173, which would make it simpler to start a new business). From the technical (S.162, clarifying power-of-attorney rules) to the ideological (S.237, which would replace the state’s “gross domestic product” figure with a measure of social and economic well-being).

A minority of the total number of bills proposed will proceed, and it’s the maneuvers among the lobbying crowd now that will determine which bills that aren’t “must pass” will be among them. This being the case, the Statehouse was consumed more with quiet conversation than outright debate, making for a fairly buzz-free week.

All the heat under the dome for the week, then, was generated by Governor Shumlin’s budget address – not so much by what was in it, but what wasn’t.

It’s no accident that the budget address came early, nor was it an oversight that the specifics were spotty at best – non-existent at worst. What direction the legislature will take in any given session is disproportionately determined in the first few weeks, and the “bully pulpit” of the gubernatorial budget address is an opportunity to seize control of that direction. Moving the budget address up was an implicit recognition of that fact. Expect all future Governors to follow suit.

In an election year, this is even more important, and these first couple weeks have had their share of positioning for this year’s gubernatorial election. Shumlin got much of his ambitious agenda underway in the last session. Now, he wants to keep the ship of state steady enough to win re-election as its Captain, while his opponents will want to derail his prospects by suggesting he’s about to run us into an iceberg.

Whoever’s message wins is off to a big head start for the November election, and – as always – the advantage goes to the incumbent Governor. His presumed challenger -Franklin County Senator Randy Brock has his work cut out for him.

Listening to the budget address, it’s clear Governor Shumlin wants to talk about the state’s recovery from Tropical Storm Irene – and why wouldn’t he? By all accounts, the response of the state under his leadership has been good – almost astonishingly so.

Shumlin also shrewdly repeated the slogan he so strongly pushed in his State of the State as a collective motto: “Vermont Strong.” If he says this enough (and he will), it becomes a state-sponsored, omnipresent re-election slogan.

And that’s why Republican leaders – with the help of the occasional frustrated Democrat – are so eager to recast the debate based on what wasn’t in the address: health care reform.

It’s a high-risk topic for Republicans with high-reward potential, and could tip the debate over the summer and put Shumlin on the defensive. That’s why so many Republicans are talking about it, and why they are pushing the topic into friendly media outlets.

At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive. Governor Shumlin ran for office on his health care reform ideas, more than on any other issue – and it worked. Why, then, wouldn’t it work again? Shouldn’t this be a topic his electoral opponents would want to avoid?

That depends on how it’s talked about.

It’s a truism in politics that it’s always easy to get broad consensus on general ideas and principles. But when general ideas become specific policy proposals, you inevitably lose some people – and given that Shumlin defeated Brian Dubie by a razor thin margin, Republicans know it may not take very many changing sides to tip the next election to Brock.

Under Shumlin’s timetable for reform, there is no need to bring up the specific hows (and how much) of his health care reform plan until next year – indeed many, such as House Health Care Committee Chair Michael Fisher – suggest it would be irresponsible to bring out details before the overall roadmap is complete.

But the GOP is demanding just that – and is backing its demand with a pair of bills to force Shumlin to present the cost of his plan before Election Day.

If the Republicans succeed, the controversy will go up to 11 – which is precisely why these bills will die in the Democrat-controlled legislative committees. Expect, then – in coming weeks and months – to see Republicans putting out their own worst-case scenario numbers as a basis for debate, while at the same time promoting the idea that Shumlin is afraid to come clean on the real costs of his proposals.

But until then, we have a legislative session to play out, and as the nuts and bolts of that session become clearer in the coming weeks, expect the early jockeying for position in the Governor’s race to subside – for a time, at least.

yeah, I was married

to that bastard

seems like a long time ago

before I went into Rehab

got straightened out

and hooked up with

this wonderful woman Anne

you know that bastard

had these little fixations

about gays and about dogs

did he ever tell you

he used to be a Catholic

that he was an Altar Boy?

there’s a good story there

I saw him on TV last night

Anne and I laughed like hell

that new wife of his

I can just imagine the kind

of shit she’s going through

bet she’s on the booze and pills

make a great First Lady

if I weren’t so clean now

I might like to have a few

drinks with her and exchange

some stories about him

but hell, maybe it would be

better to wait til October

see how many other women

come forward with their stories

I’ll bet there’s just dozens

and dozens of women all over

this goddamned country who have

stories to tell about some asshole

who’s running for office or

already in some office chasing

his young aide around his desk

when American men and women

figure out some day that the

way men treat their women and

their kids says a lot about everything

that’s wrong with this country

maybe that’s when there’ll be

some of this hope for change

but I’m not holding my breath

I’ve got to go now cause I told Anne

I’d meet her at the movie

we’re going to see Carnage

hey, there’s a good title for all

this bullshit that bastard I was

married to and the rest of them

are putting us through

maybe Roman Polanski should run

for office?  he likes ’em young too

see you all in October

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

When I entered the workforce as a callow teen, in the summer of 1966, I received my first minimum wage paycheck of roughly fifty dollars as if it was gold-plated.  Babysitting had only netted me .75 per hour, so $1.25 represented a huge raise for me.

A quick look at prices in that forgotten era tells me more about the actual value of that $1.25  wage.

A gallon of milk was .99.  A gallon of gas was .32.  First-class postage cost a nickel, and the average cost of a new house was around $15,000.   A brand new car was in the $2,600. range.

1966 was also the year in which, under a federal mandate from the Johnson administration, the University of Wisconsin created its “Institute on Poverty Research.”  Just three years later a social conscience was not yet unfashionable, and childhood poverty rates reached their lowest level ever, when only  14% of children lived in poverty.  That figure is now at roughly 22%.

In 1966, most qualified students could attend a public university for next to nothing, and even “Ivy League” privates charged only about $3,000. per year.

Just as today, we had an unpopular war in a strange foreign land; but we also were still a manufacturing powerhouse then, and upward mobility was an achievable goal.  Our cup was at least half-full.

So what exactly does the new minimum wage for Vermont, at $8.46 per hour (the third highest in the land) puchase in 2012’s economy?

It would buy you a lot more milk than it did in 1966, at an average price of $3.76 per gallon in 2011; but only a little more than two gallons of high-test as opposed to three in ’66.    Of course bizarre price-fixing schemes that profit everyone but the small, responsible farmer and the independent gas station account for the relatively low cost of food and fuel in today’s economy.  

The more substantial costs of living, like housing, education and transportation tell quite a different story.

A minimum wage earner in 1966 would make, from a 40-hour work-week, an annual salary of $2,600. Nonetheless, the average income in 1966 was $6,900 and significantly more low-wage earners could count on a full forty hours of work every week  while union membership and influence was at its strongest.  

In 2011 the average income was $26,364.  A single year of education at even a mid-tier private college or University  costs this much or more.  Even at an average public college, the average cost of four years for in-state students comes to more than $30,000.

AAA estimates that the average cost per year to own and operate a car in 2012 is $8,588, a cost that would consume fully half of a Vermont minimum wage earner’s annual salary, even if he or she were so lucky as to work a full 40-hour week.  

It’s no wonder that, in communities underserved by public transportation, some Vermonters are forced to choose between a roof over their heads and the car necessary to get them to their minimum wage job.

The VHFA found that affording a “modest” two-bedroom apartment in Vermont requires a household income of $39,595-more than twice the state’s minimum wage at full-time employment. And while some households have more than one wage earner, nearly two-thirds have only one or fewer.

So, while Vermont’s minimum wage increase is certainly better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (or the federal minimum wage of $7.25), and will be welcome to the folks previously locked into $8.15 per hour, it won’t move anyone out of dire poverty.  

And you can bet there will be a fair number of crepe-hangers complaining that it disadvantages small businesses and the “job creators” they imagine to be lurking somewhere in the luxury shadows, just waiting for us to tempt them into action.

You’re supposed to lead with your thesis statement, yes? Well, then: I have decided to run for the open City Clerk position here in Montpelier. As such, assuming I am successful in my race (and I intend to be) I will, in the coming weeks, be handing over the “keys” to Green Mountain Daily to others, and will step back from my role as a local political blogger. I will also be stepping down as the News Editor for The Bridge in Montpelier.

I will continue my syndicated Statehouse column, which has been picked up by at least three papers that I’m aware of. I will also continue blogging at the national level, on politics as well as pop/geek culture at the soon-to-be-launched leftygeek.com. Stay tuned for more on that.

I may well return someday. Never say never, after all, but even if I lose my race, I’ll likely stay away from GMD for a while. It just seems like the right thing to do for a number of reasons.

So over the coming weeks leading up to Town Meeting Day, I’ll be on a GMD farewell tour of sorts, and am liable to post just about anything.

On a personal note, this is no small decision for me.

Six years ago, I read the writing on the wall. Of course by then, it wasn’t too hard; the netroots were transforming politics in the country as a whole, as well as the individual states. And it wasn’t simply blogs, it was the user-driven, decentralized, DailyKos model that gave political blogs that community-building quality which enabled so many regular folk to directly engage with the political elite and the media. It was an opportunity for regular folks to step up and start driving the conversation, instead of being driven by it.

For my part, I saw an opportunity to save many Democratic politicians from themselves. From years of media conditioning, so many Democrats had begun to doubt their own principles, so when the opportunity to act on them came around, they would hesitate – and lose. The DailyKos blog model gave us a vehicle to lead, and demonstrate to these wavering Dems that, if they act on their principles, they make the world a better place AND they win elections.

It also gave us an opportunity to crack into the closed “conventional wisdom” loop of the political media in Vermont – a circle that was getting smaller and smaller – and as such more and more insular – every day. The netroots model offered a way to elbow our way into that closed loop and have a say in forming that conventional wisdom.

So I contacted Jack McCullough, David Waldman (of DailyKos, who at that time was doing online media work for Bernie Sanders) and Lynn Bedell in Windham County to start GMD. Although David later came on board the front page (as Kagro X), he couldn’t help out on the launch. So I reached out to Eddie Garcia (kestrel9000), a regular DailyKos poster with Vermont roots (and who had had a recent, delightfully notorious interview with Vermont GOP firebreather Mark Shepard). So, when Lynn had to step back from the project, GMD launched with myself, Jack and Eddie as the first front pagers.

A major goal in the early days was to build momentum within the state Democratic Party to push impeachment on George W. Bush, but it became a lot more than that. Over the years, we’ve had an impact on more policy debates than I can remember.

Our impact on elections has been even more notable. We hosted the first online debate in Vermont between John Tracy and Matt Dunne in their primary contest for Lt. Governor. We played Dem-cop, putting the kibosh on behind-the-scenes electoral shenanigans within the party. By the 2010 election, we stood as the most efficient way for statewide candidates to reach large numbers of the statewide primary base, and as such, we regularly hosted contributions from not simply the gubernatorial primary candidates, but the other statewide Dems as well. We also helped raise around $36,000 in contributions for the Shumlin campaign on ’10.

Over the years we’ve had participation from officeholders of all stripes – including Progressive, and even the occasional Republican, officeholder.

What we didn’t do, as I’d hoped we would, is help launch a wide, thriving and diverse political blogosphere in the state. There are still only a very few active blogs, and that’s a bummer (meaning no disrespect to my few compadres out there blogging away… I just wish there were a few more of us).

But six years later, we have Democratic supermajorities in the House and Senate, a Democratic Governor, and Dem locks on all three of our DC officeholders. We also have seen the lines blur between the Progressive and Democratic parties – enough so that its easier for both to work together electorally (Anthony Pollina is a DEM officeholder!!)

I’m not saying we did all that – not by a long shot. But we did some of it.

So I’m bailing out when the work gets much, much harder – because now is the era of keeping our Governor and legislature from giving into the easy trap of sliding away from progressive principles.

And I don’t have to tell any of you how tough that is – and how much creativity it’s going to take. Frankly, it’s a task that makes the last few years look like a cakewalk.

But the crew I’m leaving behind is up to it. Along with Jack and kestrel, there’s BP, Julie, Nanuq, Sue, Maggie, JD, Caoimhin, jvwalt, Liane, Chris and others.

And they’ll maintain a platform that regularly does what would have been unthinkable 6-10 years back, when the Democratic Party had settled into a hierarchical stasis – it criticizes. We pat our electeds on the back when they deserve it, jump up and down and yell at them when they deserve that, and the old paradigms of retaliation and control that used to exist within that party hierarchy have been broken down. Front Pagers are no longer punished behind the scenes for publicly criticizing their “leaders” (yes, I have stories – I’ll tell them some day), and those leaders even return to post and interact with the community after they receive criticism.

That’s because they realize that we can disagree – even passionately – but still work together to make the world a better place. In some cases it’s taken a while to remind them of that, but message received.

On a personal note, I’m gonna say something goopy, here. I’ve thought about what’s kept me in this business this long, while so many others flame out. I think it’s a question of what motivates me – or any blogger. The internet comment-sphere can be an ugly place, as you all know. And also, as you know, I’ve been a bit of a lightning rod and have drawn more than my share of crazy stalkers.

But the stalkers and the angry flameouts always have one thing in common; they all seem to really, really dislike people. I daresay some of them seem to hate people. Whether that’s because they feel they’re better than everyone else, or they’re angry at the world for not recognizing what they believe is their genius, I don’t know.

But you just can’t maintain this kind of thing if you’re motivated by hate. It burns you right out.

As grumpy and grousy and frustrated as I get, if there’s one thing that’s always been true about me, it’s the fact that I love people. I’m very Star Trek that way. Not just individual people, the whole flippin human race. Sure we’re screwed up, but for every way we’re screwed up, there are a dozen ways we’re freaking amazing. There’s nobility in even the worst of us, somewhere.

I always figure the best thing we can do while we’re here is to try and leave the world a better place than it was when we got here. If people are a “cancer” or universally “stupid,” that’s impossible. Worse than impossible, if you really believe that, there’s nothing to stop you from just ransacking the place while you’re here – why wouldn’t you, if all your fellow humans suck?

“Love keeps her in the air when she ought to fall down” as Captain Reynolds said.

And if that’s not geeky enough for you right there, keep an eye out for the launch of leftygeek.com…

 The co-founder of the Carlyle Group equity fund will donate $7.5 million for repairs needed to the Washington Monument after last August’s earthquake. National Parks Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis reportedly planted the idea in the head of the co-founder of the Carlyle Group David Rubenstein

"I told him I thought it important that the monument be opened as quickly as possible, and if I could help in any way, I'd be pleased to do so," Rubenstein said. Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes described Rubenstein as having a "generous and patriotic spirit."

In 2011, Rubenstein and two other founders

received  $275,000 salary, a $3.55 million bonus, and $134 million in distributions.  That's a total of $137.825 million each.

The ultimate “one percent-er” investment group, often called the ex-presidents club, the Carlyle Group is a huge private equity group that operates in the “iron triangle” of industry, government and military. Carlyle’s  stellar investors  have included George HW Bush , former British PM John Major, parts of the Bin Laden family, and a US CIA Directors and U S Secretaries of State. Carlyle will be going public later this year and there is some squawking that planned shareholder agreements will not allow class action suits by shareholders.

Some things just feel quite wrong. They may not actually be wrong in the legal or moral sense, but just represent or illustrate something more out of balance than normal. What does it say about this country at the moment that we can go, hat in hand, to solicit money from a group like this yet our congress can’t marshal the political will to raise taxes on the hyper wealthy ?

Maybe it is just bad optics? After all the Washington Monument was partly financed with private funds to start with before Congress got around supplying funding in the late 1800’s for completion.

Also location, location, location.It must be imperative for Carlyle to have an appearance of prosperity in view when looking down from their Pennsylvania Aue. office building.Can’t have shabby monument in the neighborhood.  

Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There it is, that’s a straw, you see? You watching? And my straw reaches acrooooooss the room, and starts to drink your milkshake.

I… drink… your… milkshake!

(sucking sound) I drink it up!

(from Newt Gingrich’s victory speech, Columbia, South Carolina, January 21, 2012)

Man, I have never been so happy to be dead wrong in my entire life.

Eleven days ago, I wrote a little post on GMD called “Yeah, so it’s Mitt,” proclaiming that Mitt Romney had the Republican nomination sewn up.

And by all rights, he should have. He had a big lead, he had momentum, he had big money, and he had the GOP establishment closing ranks behind him. He was widely seen as the most electable of the Republican candidates — or, to be more precise, the least unelectable, given the obvious shortcomings of the other contenders.

But then, he spent the last seven days projectile-vomiting all over his Guccis. Inept debate performances, hamfisted handling of the tax-return question, blithe ignorance of the Grand Canyon-sized gap between his finances and those of everyday Americans, and an air of boarding-school arrogance that even most Republicans find distasteful. Let’s just call him Nigel Incubator-Jones (“his best friend is a tree, and in his spare time he’s a stockbroker”) blindly firing his shotgun.

So I was wrong. Still, I think he has an edge in the race, because Newt doesn’t really have a campaign — he just has his own, 100-proof, bottled-at-the-source egotism. But Romney’s gonna have to stop making stupid mistakes immediately or he’ll go down in history as the most incompetent person to seriously contend for the Presidency since his forerunner as overly entitled Republican patrician “can’t miss candidate,” Thomas E. Dewey.

And even if Mitt does manage to pull out of his self-induced death spiral, he’s been exposed as a much weaker challenger to President Obama than he was thought to be this time last week.

So whoopee, the Republicans are set up for a long, painful, beautiful bloodletting. And if Mitt keeps going like this, we’ll actually see Newt Gingrich capturing the Republican nomination for President.

I was wrong, and I couldn’t be happier. Bring it on!

This isn’t the most important or substantive issue, but I can’t let this go without one more post.

We saw the news this week about Newt Gingrich and his, shall we say, casual attitude toward marital fidelity, for which he got some negative publicity. Granted, it’s not about politics, it’s about sex, although the fact that he was busy impeaching Bill Clinton for extramarital sex while he was enjoying his how access to extramarital sex (to the extent you can say you’re enjoying it when you’re having sex with someone who is so sharp she can cut glass) says something not very favorable about his adherence to principle and intellectual honesty.

Nevertheless, the man who has been the leader of the right wing of the Republican Party ever since the election of Bill Clinton has rushed to defend Gingrich’s honor.

From Rush Limbaugh’s web page, to which I will not link:

I got a great note from a friend of mine.  “So Newt wanted an open marriage.  BFD.  At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her.  That’s a mark of character, in my book.  Newt’s a victim.  We all are.  Ours is the horniest generation.  We were soldiers in the sex revolution.  We were tempted by everything from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to Plato’s Retreat, Deep Throat to no-fault divorce.  Many of us paid the ultimate price, AIDS, abortion, or alimony for the cultural marching orders we got.  Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government.” That’s from a good friend of mine, “Newt’s slogan ought to, ‘Hell, yes, I wanted it.'”  (laughing)  I’m sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.

“Mark of character”?

I guess that’s true. I guess that for the last thirty or forty years Gingrich has been demonstrating his character. In fact, we probably know more about the character of Newt Gingrich than we have known about any presidential candidate since Richard Nixon.

And they are remarkably similar.

 

This is not a problem limited to one State. It is an international problem affecting large areas from Maine to California, and countries around the world.

Some things should be uninvented – DES, HRT, GMOs, hexachlorophene in infants’ soap, nuclear power plants, nuclear weapons, drones… Now a new threat, the Smart Grid and Smart Meters. If these are good ideas, why is the free market not providing them? Why the need for taxpayer funding? The fact that this industry must depend on taxpayer money is just one of many reasons it is suspect.

The May 20, 2011 Sandia Labs News Release reported that 69.3 Million has been granted for Smart Meter implementation in Vermont.

During a December 2011 news conference Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Senator Bernie Sanders announced their support of a 15 million dollar government grant to Sandia Labs. The grant is to be used for implementation of Smart Meter technology in Vermont. This is a perfect example of Corporate Welfare. Sandia has a long, fascinating history.

From the Sandia website: “…Sandia National Laboratories’ roots lie in World War II’s Manhattan Project and its history reflects the changing national security needs of postwar America. Sandia’s original emphasis on ordnance engineering – turning the nuclear physics packages created by Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories into deployable weapons – expanded into new areas as national security requirements changed. In addition to ensuring the safety and reliability of the stockpile, Sandia applied the expertise it acquired in weapons work to a variety of related areas such as energy research…”.

Is it really a good idea to put the national electric grid under the control of any corporation? How about a corporation with a history of war and destruction? There are many unanswered questions.

The Smart Grid is the opposite of the movement toward sustainable communities and transition towns. Control of the grid should be local. When power outaqes occur, and they will, the smaller the area of the black-out the better. The larger the area, the more difficult it is for any emergency response. This puts large populations at risk for property damage and death. In September 2011 a large power outage affected more than 5 million people in California, Arizona, and Mexico. In recent years an ice storm caused a large power outage in northern New York State. Farmers were among those affected. Eventually farmers were able to access generators for milking machines on rural farms.

One of the big issues in Vermont is the lack of generators. When power goes out, individual home owners are on their own. Some home owners have purchased generators. Most cannot afford the high price. Estimates range upwards of $5000 for a hard wired generator that will allow a furnace to heat a home and prevent property damage. The damage caused by frozen pipes can be extensive. Also, there are health concerns for those who need electricity to power medical devices.

One of the most relevant questions is – why do we need a Smart Grid? Who will benefit? The first duty of a corporation is to its share holders. Profit and the bottom line trump consumer protection. In Vermont there is a history of this. For example, CVPS moved all of its emergency repair vehicles out of Bennington. The vehicles are now garaged many miles away in Sunderland. This decision to garage the vehicles in a less densely populated area was based on the corporate bottom line. That is understandable. It is not the duty of corporations to be benevolent. This is the way the capitalistic system works. The move of the vehicles has placed many homes at risk – especially during winter storms. This risk continues today.

Why the rush to an unproven technology? Will the cost per kilowatt go down for the consumer? Will there be privacy concerns? Who will have access to power consumption data of individual homes? For anyone with access, it will be easy to see which homes are occupied and when they are unoccupied. Will every home now need to be protected with battery powered burglar alarm systems?

Besides questions about the Grid, there are questions about Smart Meters. In some areas of the country they are illegal. There are questions about the synergistic consequences of additional EMF pollution in the environment. There have been reports of health devices and other electronic equipment being affected. Some believe that Smart Meters can cause cancer. All of the science is not yet in. It will take years. In the meantime, should people be used as guinea pigs for this big experiment? How much more would be accomplished if the science and money were dedicated to conservation and alternative sources of power? Every dollar spent on the Smart Grid is a dollar that is not available for other efforts.

There is another issue – that of the lack of a democratic process. In Vermont those who opt-out of the Smart Meter implementation will be charged an additional fee every month. It is reported that in Maine there is a one-time $40 opt-out fee. Op-out fees feel a little like blackmail. So far, the people have had no say in this controversy.

Maybe the most important reason to oppose Smart Grid technology, is that it places too much power in the hands of too few. Imagine bringing down the grid and the chaos that would result. No power. No refrigeration for the food supply in the summer. No heat to keep people alive in the northeast during winter. No transportation. No gas – it could not be pumped. No water – it could not be pumped.

A terrorist attack on the grid, is not the issue. Mistakes happen. Disgruntled workers react. Maybe the most sure thing is that technology fails. Sooner or later all technology fails. This is not a zero defects industry. If the unplanned shutdown damages large industrial turbines and generators, it could take many months to replace them. Think about many months without electricity.

Maybe the Smart Grid will be the greatest political/engineering feat of all time, or maybe not. Imagine just one flick of the switch and the entire system is brought down. This could be the end of everything – the real Armageddon. No food. No communication. No Internet. No life as we know it. Engineered back to the Stone Age without the survival skills that our Stone Age ancestors had.

Rosemarie Jackowski

Rosemarie Jackowski is an advocacy journalist and peace activist. She is author of BANNED IN VERMONT.

dissent@sover.net

When Fascism came, it was not brought by uniformed troops.

And the mass of people failed to recognize the inherent danger in the censoring of speech and the banning of books.

In Vermont there is a Movement toward Secession. Most citizens are unaware of this because news reports that oppose the status quo are censored. Newspapers have an ethical obligation to report news, but the obligation is not a legal one. The First Amendment does not apply to privately owned publications. Newspapers have the right to print, or not to print, anything they want.

How ironic it is that citizens look toward secession, which may or may not ever be achieved, while those in power have already successfully seceded from the Union. How did this happen? Those in power have successfully rendered the First Amendment irrelevant in Vermont – that is secession from the Constitution… secession of the worse kind.

First Amendment rights are further supported by the Fourteenth Amendment which compels States to uphold these rights. So why is that not happening? Where is the ACLU? Where is the Bar Association?

Why has the Vermont Attorney General not weighed in on this? The office of VT AG has a history of ‘protecting’ the government against the citizen. New York investigative journalist Josh Frank exposed the real politics of Vermont in his article, Dean’s Corruption in the Green Mountain State.

http://www.pressaction.com/new…

There are many examples of how government ignores Constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens. Google ‘DENNIS STEELE ARRESTED’ to see photos of a gubernatorial candidate being arrested. His crime – he wanted to participate in a pre-election forum. There is a long fascinating history of arrests of non democratic/non republican candidates. When Candidate Steele was in Bennington, he was not allowed to participate in the debate. The debate was held in a public building. Public officials game the system to get around the law.

Think about who benefits from censorship of political speech – the Democratic and Republican Parties. To change that a real Statesman will be needed – not a partisan political figure – needed is someone who can put the rights of the people above the pressure from a political party. A grassroots movement by the people could do this. The problem is that because censorship is so widespread, many citizens are unaware that they have lost their First Amendment protection. People don’t know what they don’t know.

Though it would be redundant, as a last resort, we need a brave legislator to offer a bill something like this: Henceforth, in no public building, park, land, or any other facility which receives public funds shall any candidate be prohibited from participating in any peaceful political activity. Party affiliation – or lack of any Party affiliation – should not be used to discriminate against any candidate in any public space. This right of all citizens and voters to have access to information should not be infringed upon by towns, municipalities, cities, schools, libraries, or any other publically funded group or organization. Freedom of political speech must be held as a sacred right – never to be threatened by anyone – and to be honored by all. Public open spaces should be open to all citizens, at all times. The penalty for violation should be a $10,000 fine for the first offense. Increased for subsequent offences.

The rule should be – if you accept public money, you accept the prohibition against discrimination. The right to free assembly, and free disassembly, would not be infringed upon. Anyone could still practice discrimination in their own home or any other private space. Newspapers could continue to publish or not publish anything they want.

Below is an AP report from The Times Argus:

“…SOUTH ROYALTON (AP) – A third-party candidate for U.S. Senate was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after being ejected from a debate.

Peter Diamondstone, of Brattleboro, the Liberty Union party candidate for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. James Jeffords, participated in Tuesday’s debate at the Vermont Law School along with U.S. Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Richard Tarrant, the Republican candidate for the seat.

He accused the United States of committing war crimes in Iraq.

“We are the terrorists, and the world needs to be armed against us,” said Diamondstone…”.

Diamondstone’s passionate and heartfelt message should have been allowed to be heard. It should have been debated openly. Diamondstone was ahead of his time. Now many across the globe, agree with his statement. Candidate Diamondstone’s arrest took place at the Vermont Law School. That is the ultimate irony. When the ‘law’ does not uphold the rule of law, how should citizens react? When the ‘law’ becomes the ‘outlaw’… a conundrum.

Will the First Amendment ever be restored in Vermont? I’m not holding my breath. Vermont has become the land of book-banning, censorship, and the arrest of those who try to make a difference. When any candidate is silenced, when any book is banned – every citizen should react. Censorship is the ultimate form of bullying. It is a declaration by those in power saying – we are above the law.

The Vermont culture was described by Shirley Jackson decades ago. Jackson’s book, The Lottery, remains relevant today. Some interpret her work as a classic description of society’s hostility toward those who do not conform. It was written while the author lived in North Bennington. Scholars still debate exactly what aspect of the culture inspired the author. Today, would libraries ban this valuable literary work?

Currently, how many school libraries across the country have copies of Howard Zinn’s History of the United States? Is this book banned in some classrooms?

The citizens must accept some responsibility for the degrading of their rights – but in defense of citizens – how can they be held accountable if they don’t know what they don’t know. When a book is banned, or when free speech is silenced, no one knows about it – unless there is a local newspaper that adheres to a standard of journalistic ethics. Too often, the newspaper is part of the problem.

When a school or library banns books – who would know? No one. Once in awhile knowledge about book banning leaks out. Even then, what can a citizen do? Most citizens have learned that fighting the system in a State ruled by cronyism – in a country where money rules – is a long difficult battle. Realizing that chances of success are often less than zero can be discouraging. It is during those moments, I remember an old quote – something that Peter Diamondstone once said: “We do not protest to change others. We protest so that others do not change us.”

Now is a time in history when silence is the greatest of all crimes.

Rosemarie Jackowski

Rosemarie Jackowski is an advocacy journalist and peace activist.

She is author of BANNED IN VERMONT.  

I see a story in the Saturday 1/21 Burlington Free Press entitled “Vermont House vote could bring property tax relief,” which starts out like this:

Who says politicians can’t agree?



Friday, the Vermont House of Representatives voted unanimously to add a provision to the annual budget adjustment bill that would gradually beef up the non-property tax dollars that support education.

Under the bill, one-half of any future end-of-year budget surpluses would be added to the Education Fund. And the base figure for state education funding would increase by the amount of that surplus contribution. The aim is to gradually restore recent cuts in state school funding.

Support for the bill came together on Thursday and Friday, with the unanimous vote quickly following. An impressive pace for a legislative body, to be sure.

The Freep recounts congratulatory and self-congratulatory words from supporters of the bill, such as “Hooray” from Steve Jeffrey of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

And then, in paragraph seventeen, we hear from the Shumlin Administration. Finance Commissioner Jim Reardon averred that he had only learned of the proposal on Friday, and he had yet to confer with anyone on it. Then, in paragraph nineteen, the Voice of Doom:  

Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding also didn’t know the details. “It is one of the things we will look at, but I will be surprised if it is there at the end,” he said.

In other words, this bill is dead. It’ll be killed, one way or another, in the state Senate. Governor Shumlin doesn’t want to split any future surpluses; he wants to put all the money into a budget stabilization fund to boost Vermont’s bond rating.

Which seems a bit green-eyeshade to me, but nonetheless, there it is.

In journalism, this is called “burying the lead” — putting the real thrust of a story somewhere in its midsection. The tone of the Freep article celebrated a bipartisan agreement to quickly enact a good idea. Until, that is, Jeb Spaulding entered the stage. A truer article would have said “House Passes Bill That Will Go Nowhere.”