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Midcoast commons
A project of the Midcoast Branch of the Southern Maine Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors.
Additional Column Posts (1 - 20 of 23) Next Page
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Health care from the Wizard of Oz
By Rob Wasserstrom - Jan 14When Paul LePage became governor in 2011, infant mortality in Maine tracked the U.S. average. Nearly 13,000 babies were born here each year and ...
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Paying the corporate tax on health care
By Rob Wasserstrom - Dec 18Two weeks ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that more working-age people in Maine are dying than in most other states. ...
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Poverty isn’t partisan – or is it?
By Susan Reider - Nov 20In this hyper-charged political environment, we've heard that criticism of the President is treason, opposition is partisan posturing, election ...
Closer than you think: Maine and California
By Rob Wasserstrom - Oct 22Reading about the recent wildfires in California, it's hard to avoid drawing parallels between Pacific Gas and Electric Company to our own CMP. ...
The power of money
By Susan Reider - Oct 10Americans pride ourselves on having the best quality of life, the best political and economic system, the best future for our children. But does ...
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Hello, Gilded Age -- we're back!
By Robert Wasserstrom - Sep 12In the early 1900s, Rockland, Bath, Lewiston and Portland were major centers of labor conflict in Maine. Among other reforms, union members wanted ...
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We owe more than we own
By Robert Wasserstrom - Aug 15Did I read that right? Unwilling to reverse LePage's tax cuts for wealthy people, Gov. Janet Mills would like us to borrow another $249 million ...
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CMP is eating our lunch
By Susan Reider - Jul 18When I first read that Central Maine Power was asking for a rate hike again this year, I almost laughed. After all, it bungled the rollout of its ...
A democratic grid?
By Dylan Cookson - Jun 06“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This sentence is ...
Scientist and socialist: Norman Wallace Lermond, 1861-1944
By Susan Reider - May 09Midcoast Maine has had no shortage of interesting and colorful characters over the years, like Norman Wallace Lermond (1861-1944), of Thomaston. ...
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Some seasonal thoughts
By Susan Reider - Dec 23Our annual celebration of the birth of Jesus always makes me wonder what kind of a country we are. The Christian Right claims ownership of the ...
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Energy conservation and the climate crisis
By Rob Wasserstrom - Dec 05In a recent “Deep State” article, Free Press reporter Lance Tapley argued that energy conservation could help us get off “the road to world ruin” ...
Veterans Day
By Rob Wasserstrom - Oct 31On Nov. 11, Veterans Day, take a look at one of those Civil War statues and ask yourself: What did those men fight for? We should all be grateful ...
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The power of money
By Susan Reider - Oct 17Americans pride ourselves on having the best quality of life, the best political and economic system, the best future for our children. But does ...
Thompson Murch: Rockland's labor congressman
By Robert Wasserstrom - Sep 26Few people remember that a Knox County labor leader became Maine's first progressive congressman. In 1877, Thompson H. Murch cofounded the Granite ...
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Support the workers
By Dylan Cookson - Aug 29Labor Day was first celebrated in Rockland in the 1890s. The labor movement had been spreading across the country for decades, but the Labor Day ...
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Learning from history: democratic socialism in Maine
By Robert Wasserstrom - Aug 01Debates about the future of democratic socialism have a long history in the Midcoast. By the late 19th century, Knox County had become “the ...
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Opioids and the failure of capitalism
By Robert Wasserstrom - Jun 20Most of us know that Maine is going through an opioid crisis. Last year, 335 Mainers died of opioid-related causes. In 2017, one in seven newborn ...
Power in people's hands
By Dylan Cookson - May 23A few weeks ago, State Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, hosted a talk in Rockport on his proposal to replace both CMP and Emera Maine with a ...
Moving without fear to a carbon-free future
By Sarah Miller - Apr 25Global warming is frightening. There's no way around that. What there's no reason to fear is the transition off fossil fuels and onto renewable ...
