The Portland City Council should be more than just “concerned” about Tar Sands

          After hours of public comment on Monday night, the Portland City Council altered a resolution from “opposing” Tar Sands oils from Canada to merely expressing “concern“ about blasting the heated mixture under Sebago Lake through the Portland-Montreal pipeline.

          I am writing because I find it highly disturbing that City Council members Ed Suslovic, Nick Mavadones, and Cheryl Lehman can claim ignorance to the issue of transporting Tar Sands under Portland’s water supply. Time and again, national news has reported the devastating and damaging effects of Tar Sands spills upon property, burning toxic chemicals into the air, and spilling and mixing into drinking water.

           During the Monday night meeting I inadvertently sat next to a Canadian representative for the oil industry and several representatives from the Portland Pipeline. There were dozens of people from all walks of life who expressed support for the resolution and only a few men who spoke against the resolution. In fact, the only person not tied to the transport of oil in Portland who supported Tar Sands admitted that he was a child of the oil industry.

          Bitumen is a chemical contained in the “proprietary blend” of Tar Sands, which will be burned and released into the air through smoke stacks in South Portland. Bitumen and possibly other chemicals such as benzene contained in the blend are known carcinogens. It is against the common good of people in Maine to support foreign oil corporations who intend to poison our basic resources in order to transport their toxic product for export.

           The admitted ignorance of the City Council can only be countered with a strong push by constituents to inform their representatives.  Suslovic, Mavadones, and Lehman should ask their children and grandchildren if they would like to be breathing in bitumen for years to come. I do not believe that merely “concern” about pervasive chemicals in our land, air, and drinking water is enough. Should we be lead to believe that representatives on City Council are only  “concerned” about the higher rates of cancer linked to burning and spilling Tar Sands, but not opposed to it? I think not.

 

Here is the Portland Press Herald article about the resolution:

http://www.pressherald.com/news/portland-concerned-about-tar-sands-oil_2013-05-21.html

 

A Letter to Myself as a High School Graduate

I started this reflection about current anxieties plaguing graduating high school students, and it quickly became a letter to myself as a teen. As a graduating high school senior, I loathed myself and my body, was angry about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and feared global warming.

 

Dear High School Graduate,

             I offer some advise for you. You may like it, or you might not. It seems too simple to be the truth. I am asking you to believe in yourself and your abilities despite the craziness and unnecessary expectations of the world.  Once you see through the façade of fairness in our systems and society, you can’t help but feel jaded, angry, or even apathetic.

           Those who see the injustices of the world might feel betrayed or depressed in the day-to-day mundane or often violent lifestyles that families have built.  In this sad reality, you must have confidence and care about who you are because if you don’t care about yourself, no one else will. You are ultimately autonomous in your actions, so believe in yourself, love all that you are, and do what you think is best for you.

          As a teen prescribed anti-depressants, you will also learn that a pill cannot and ultimately will not solve your problems, your thinking, or attitude. I am telling you that in spite of the anger that you feel towards yourself, others and the world, you must channel that energy into good.  In fact, it is normal and expected to be upset about violence and inequality. You will learn that anger, depression, and apathy are cured through everyday gratitude and alternative action. This might sound too simple or cliché for you right now.

          Furthermore, do not stop questioning authority and systems that you believe are unjust. Only by opposing what is unfair, can we think and act in ways which will make the world better. The freedom to question and to speak to power is truly American.

          You will learn that your generation has been given the “impossible” tasks of growing up in the age of “global terror” and “catastrophic environmental destruction”.   We have no choice but to take positive action in our day-to-day lives, buck the trend of self-imposed austerity, pollution, and economic enslavement, and to create a new era of civil and environmental rights.  Make the world proud, graduate!

Love,

Holly

Occupy the School Board: Reflections on the 2014 Portland School Budget

          Since the Portland Superintendent announced next year’s school budget, I have received about a hundred emails and letters from concerned parents, teachers, and constituents. Every letter has encouraged me not to cut positions and to not to reduce classes, administration, and opportunities for students. Several parents let me know that that they would prefer that Portland City Councilors raise taxes before cutting funding and positions at Portland’s schools.

          I started my political involvement in Portland as a member of the Occupy movement. I arranged marches and demonstrations to call attention to massive austerity and cuts for schools. I ran for School Board in Portland with the desire foster educational opportunities for children in Maine. 

          I encourage every parent, student, teacher, and anyone who loves education to get involved in your local activist communities. We need a social movement to counter our culture of recession, which has plagued our schools especially over the past decade. I am calling on you to join me in taking direct action to pressure your representatives, state legislature, and national government to end the downward spiral that we have created for ourselves.  I do not believe that simply sending an email with concern will create the change that you and I so desperately want to see in this world.

          As you know, I am not for cutting any services or positions that will negatively impact students. The state is cutting funding in order to place the burden directly upon the local taxpayers. The City Council would have to approve a local tax increase for us to remain at the same budget. If you would like to pay more in taxes to support our schools, PLEASE let your City Councilor know!  If your representatives continues to be complacent or “rubber stamp” these devastating cuts or to follow status quo, don’t vote for them!

          When I reflect upon the global recession that we have been facing for years now, I am reminded that we are in the same boat as “failing” economies and other “failing “ schools. The problem is a global austerity agenda that we the people need to work to end.  I have spoken with the teacher’s unions and have encouraged the unions to stand up and join me in events that will call media and local attention to the austerity problem. 

          On May first, the AFL-CIO and other activists will march starting at 4pm at Lincoln Park. If you are concerned about massive education cuts, you should join the celebration on “May Day” this year and create an event in Portland to call attention to our schools and the future for our children.

 

Bollardhead Bemoans Burlesque by Holly Seeliger

          Since my election onto the Portland School Board in the fall, journalist Chris Busby of “The Bollard” and “The Bangor Daily News” has written several articles about me, and each time he has used the words “Stripping” and/or “Stripper”. I have found Chris Busby’s articles to be sexist, and have been suggested by friends and constituents to address some of Busby’s sexism.

           When I announced my candidacy to run for School Board in the summer of 2012, I published an article on my blog entitled “Politics and the Pin Up” where I articulated my burlesque hobby in Portland, my dedication to my community, and my desire for public service. I would first like to clarify to readers that there is a difference between burlesque and the profession of stripping. I will also say that I have friends who are or have been strippers. Perhaps Busby is afraid that a “stripping” hobby will be so distracting that I will lack the brain capacity to serve on the School Board! It is a fact that female politicians and those in the public eye are commonly scrutinized, made hollow, and objectified by the media.

          When Busby is condescending to the burlesque scene and myself, I think of all of the other dancers and artists who work so hard to contribute to art in Portland for basically no money. It is a labor of love for performers, and I encourage other artists to not feel belittled about what others think of your own work. I appreciate local journalism, and believe that politicians can and should be questioned by the media. I do, however, think that sexism and one-dimensional objectification of others should be called out. I think that Chris Busby should attend a burlesque show in Portland, because he would realize that the people who perform and support the scene are his creative and hard-working neighbors. I will even provide him with two tickets to a show!

          I am honored to have been elected onto the School Board and have loved this opportunity more than any other work that I have done. If Busby or others believe that I should not produce or perform in any more shows, than he should say so. Although I believe that it is my First Amendment right to do so, I will consider stopping burlesque if it is too offensive to my constituents. I believe that I have always been tasteful, I have been truthful, and I am dedicated and honored to be serving my term on the Portland School Board.

Gun Violence in the United States and the Military Industrial Complex

          Over two thousand years ago, the Asian sage Confucius said that effective governments provide weapons, food, and trust to its people.  If trust is broken and food is expensive, the government should abandon weapons until food and trust is once again established. As we look back on recent mass shootings across the U.S., I ask myself- where do all of these weapons come from?

          Did you know that the United States is the number one producer and exporter of guns and weapons? Every year, we as taxpayers spend billions of dollars funding and subsidizing arms deals with unstable countries and have created a global society where one in four people can have access to guns. In 2011, the Mexican government filed to sue the U.S. for importing weapons and funding a continuation of violence and global instability. According to the New York Times, in one example of the U.S. arms trade, known as “Operation Fast and Furious”, federal agents allowed the illegal purchase of approximately two thousand guns, but did not intervene to arrest or seize the weapons because they were trying to identify higher-ups in the crime network. The bureau lost track of the guns, and two of these American-made guns were used to murder an American Border patrol agent near Mexico.

          When I reflect upon how our Military-Industrial complex has flooded our world with weapons, it is not surprising to me that gun violence is so prevalent. When I was a little girl, my aunt and several other people were shot and killed by her husband, a Vietnam Veteran who had been discharged from a VA hospital. Perhaps we as a society need to examine why men in our country are feeling the need to go on killing rampages.

          As a member of the Portland School Board and a volunteer at a local high school, I doubt that further arming of our schools will prevent gun violence. Thirty percent of public schools in the U.S. have armed guards, and armed police were at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School when both shootings occurred.  Also, let us not forget the students who were murdered by armed police at Kent State.

          Confucius supported eating with chopsticks because he believed that knives and forks were weapons inappropriate to have at the dinner table. I say that guns are inappropriate weapons to have at educational institutions. Rather than simply attempt to limit guns for individuals though specific laws, we need to stop spreading our enormous arms trade and spending billions of tax dollars every year to subsidize weapons.

Reflections on my first year in the Occupy Movement

Political movements of 2011 and Activism in the instant media age

By Holly Seeliger

 

The year 2011 saw the beginning of a global activist movement to challenge the current corporatization of political, economic, and financial power by moneyed elites. From the indigenous battles and student protests in South America, the indignados in Spain, the Tar Sands and student protestors in Canada, the young anti-Putin movement and “Pussy Riot” in Russia, the masses at Tahrir square and the “Arab spring”, and the “Occupy” movements in the U.S. and around the world, the struggle of these social movements is the same.  It is a battle for autonomous control and collective ownership of production and labor, distribution of goods and services, and the communication of information and ideas. The movements of today are fundamentally changing democratic participation and civic norms to creative a future which is shaped by the people.

All around the world we are witness to the shattering of our social compacts, our rights, and our aspirations for the future under crippling cuts to services, and an increase in violence and pollution. Austerity measures have sought to decrease education, healthcare, and opportunities for a skilled workforce at the expense of ever-increasing military spending and the surveillance of our own people. Since 2007, recession deficits pose the biggest threat to economic recovery and global stability, yet the established consensus revolves around reduced investment in infrastructure and social services, under the guise of shared sacrifice for “living beyond our means”.

The failures of corporate industrialism upon our ecosystems, our health, economy and equality are too encompassing and too dangerous to ignore. No amount of energy spent on the defense of the “freedom” or the “American Way”, or excuses and adjustment to regulate or moralize capitalism can shield its failure. Compounded with the squeeze of austerity, the tenants of industrialism- the replacement of people as labor by transitioning to technology, and the concentration of wealth and resources into the elite minorities- seem closer to our world realities. How can these movements which began in 2011 stand up to such overwhelming and encompassing challenges? The answer is and always has been through non-violence and non-compliance to oppression, and holistic and egalitarian direct civic engagement and participation.

Protestors acknowledge the grave shape of our institutions, which have remained self-serving and have neglected the needs of the people. The relentless perusal of maximum profits by the privileged one percent has taken the form of corporatism, which must, by legal definition, place profit for shareholders over any other consideration. It is the duty of the people to create a new social ethos, which will value small group challenges, local issues and citizen control of political, social, and economic arenas.

More and more, activists realize that the global battle is against multi-national corporations and the antidote is a fight that says “not in my backyard”, and more importantly, “not on my planet”. From the XL pipelines and fracking, to the stripping of the Appalachians, the melting of our ice caps, the damming of the Amazon River, the Gulf Coast and Kalamazoo oil spills, and the Fukashima Nuclear disaster, it has become a global responsibility for all to stand up to the destruction of our people, animals, and planet.

These movements are lead by students who are over-burdened with debt, majority populations without affordable healthcare or a livable wage, and citizens and soldiers who are rejecting the decade-long wars on foreign and domestic terror. Whether on the serving or receiving end of the “Global war on terror”, the “War on Drugs”, or the “War on Illegal Immigration”, all of the youth who have grown up in this shadow are victims.  My generation will battle puppet regimes, destructive capitalism and our real environmental threats to our water, soil and air, which have been purchased by corporations and polluted and exploited. The youth of today are brave enough and open-minded enough to challenge previous economic and social structures and restrictions.

In an age of vast wealth inequality and blatant corruption of institutions a la “corporate personhood”, the activists of today do not only challenge capitalist institutions, but demand direct responsibility and decision-making. Because of globalization, the corporate model can reach vast economic, social, institutional, and political power, yet it is through this same advancement that activists can also connect around the world. These new movements utilize hand-held media technology to instantaneously stream video, post pictures, or share articles online with fellow activists.

Within the course of just one year, these movements have gained worldwide momentum and have protested against bailed-out banks, foreclosed homes, occupied workplaces and college campuses, defended rivers and waterways, demanded the closure of nuclear power plants, joined in the preservation of public spaces, and the called for an end to strip-mining, poaching, fracking, and clear-cutting. Online sharing of news and events around the world have taught activists that direct action and democratic participation creates tangible and often global results.

What connects all of these movements is the targeted use of new media sources and pragmatism in political involvement through the exchange of tactics, updates and ideas with other activists around the world. Because of the accessibility to real-time communication and the spread of news, new actions can spring up around the world and build a global movement. Today’s tech-savvy youth are aware of deliberate manipulation of facts by the corporate media, and the bias against activism by the media worldwide. Citizen and alternative journalism have empowered people around the world through sharing of stories. The Tahrir Square activists used Twitter, the indignados created newspapers, radio and television programs, and the Occupy Movements have connected though the “livestreaming” of events.

The movements which began in 2011 will change the status quo as students and others seek participation in civic life and “Occupy the ballot” through grassroots campaigns and elections into local political offices. Support for alternative politics and political parties have grown, as in the case of Ron Paul’s Libertarian and Jill Stein’s Green Party Presidential Campaigns. 

 I graduated from the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine with my B.A. in Political Science in 2010. In the fall of 2011, I became joined the Occupy Maine Movement and wrote and reported for several episodes of “Occupy Maine TV News”, which appeared online and on Portland’s cable access network CTN-5. Many Occupy members have also joined the Green Party to seek election in local politics, and I have decided to run for the Portland School Board as a Green Party member in the November 2012 elections.

                                          

There is now a global demand against the corporate elite’s control of the planet towards the pursuit of non-violence, transparency, health and equality. The powerful minorities are no longer needed as our overlord, our politician, our economic stimulator, or our “job creator”. Today’s political movements are holistic in tactic, seeing the potential for grass-roots change in every institution. It is my belief that the new status quo is non-violent direct participation and the utilization of new media to spread information and ideas, and structures that are subject to corporatism and elite minorities are in the process of falling apart. This is achieved through non-compliance with governments who no longer serve the people, and through the demand for collective ownership of production, communication, and distribution. As self-reliant individuals who seek collective ownership and responsibility towards our planet, today’s political movements use new media technology to create active stewardship of our destiny.

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Community Update

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