Keeping the Narrative Keeping On!
Steadfast perseverance in the year ahead- Can it make a difference?
Dear Readers,
For many years I have invested my own time and energy in independent research about the workings of what I call the public-private for-profit non-profit wealth concentration and redistribution system that runs through everything in our society.
My research journey began around 2007 when I was seeking funding for Andersen Design in making the transition to the online era. I encountered one of the public-private government fundraising opportunities which struck me as exploitative of the small entrepreneurial community that it purported to serve.
My encounter led to researching the statute that established the p-p corporation that I had encountered and then digging into a large network of interrelated economic development laws going back to 1976 when the Maine Legislature declared that centrally managing the economy is an essential government function that must be done by public-private relationships. At the time Maine had the fastest-growing small enterprise economy in the nation. I have often wondered how the economy might have evolved if the public-private government hadn’t stepped in, “for the public benefit”, while in reality, the policies were a means to extract public funds for the benefit of private investors, as documented in the story of the Maine Capital Corporation, the charter of which was number one on the agenda of the newly-formed centralized economy.
As an independent researcher, no one paid me, and no one directed my research, which meant I was free to go where others could not and thus change the narrative. What the mainstream narrative left out inspired me to start writing.
Standing as an individual is an important distinction in today’s world in response to the question, is it legitimate for an individual to have a voice- on their own initiative? There is a prevalent point of view that doesn’t think so, a byproduct of the centrally managed hierarchical system in which all must have someone above them that governs their actions. No loose canons! If one person speaks their individual voice, rather than an organizational voice, it is understandable that others, suffering from amnesia, might ask “who gave her/him the right? If I have to be granted permission to speak, why doesn’t she/he? “completely occluding constitutional freedom of speech from their reality construct.
If the individual keeps on speaking independently, the obvious answer to the question becomes apparent and in the best of outcomes, others join in.
Today’s dominant culture is built on hierarchical relationships demanding artifice and service from those caught in its net. When the top-down organization is dominant it increasingly evolves into a culture that teaches how to put on a friendly veneer hiding resentment that simmers for a great length below the surface until it finds a release, perhaps the victim becomes the abuser of some unsuspecting person in a completely different environment, or joins a cult following a leader that harnesses the free-floating currents of low-self-esteem, resentment, and disempowerment into a political mass to serve the leader’s own ends.
Perhaps I have a perspective molded by exceptional conditions being raised in a small enterprise environment but from that perspective, until recently the Boothbay Peninsula and other rural areas have been fortunate in remaining outside of the corporate culture, but today the Peninsula is experiencing an influx of developers wanting to transform the Peninsuala into urban corporate culture, as I believe is the intent of combined large-scale transformations currently underway, including the plans to build a ghost suburb of corporate-owned single-family homes described as “diverse’ meaning featuring everything from low-income housing to workforce housing, as a structured hierarchical complex, an upstairs-downstairs community designed by developers rather than a society that evolves from within into whatever strata are the natural outcomes of organic growth.
I was fortunate to grow up in a business in a home. Both my parents came from working-class backgrounds with talents that landed them in cultures of privilege. I believe that they intentionally sought out an environment that was middle-class, and fortunately for them, there was a middle class back in the day, so they set out to design a handmade product affordable to the middle class.
I did not realize until recently how radical that was. It began to dawn on me when I was reading archeology research papers about the Bronze Age, a time before the written word. Archeologists asked could the itinerate craftsmen who were not producing prestige objects for the kingdom have been freemen???
And I am thinking- Yeah- we are. why not?
Then I started imagining that throughout history there were fleeting moments when there was a flourishing middle class but it lasts for such a short time that it leaves too little impression for archeologists and historians to pick up. I was fortunate to be born in the middle of a Golden Age of the Twentieth Century Middle Class. Look how long that lasted. Gone in a flash! I submit that the Peninsula would be wiser to get back to the middle than to follow the route of gentrification and urbanization that is currently being pushed by the new developers. It would be a miraculous achievement but only the genuine working classes know that. Our leaders are out of touch with the dawn of a new era. They think that all will be designed from above and the people for whom it is said to be designed will have no say in the matter.
The difference in the quality of authenticity in human relationships outside of and within corporate culture explains why during Covid as the workforce worked in the privacy of their own homes for an extended period away from corporate culture, many did not want to return. There are other reasons why the workforce did not want to return to headquarters, but the human relationships factor is the most visceral. In many cases, it became apparent that working at headquarters wasn’t essential to accomplish the job. For those resisting the return to headquarters, as seen through the framework of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, working at corporate headquarters satisfies the first tier and perhaps, at least partially the second tier but not the third tier
For the group that resisted a return to headquarters, remote working satisfied the first, second, and third tiers. According to Maslow’s original thinking, the first tiers must be satisfied before the awareness of the next needs is felt and realized. He later revised that satisfaction of needs must necessarily proceed in an order set in stone, but it is fair to say that there is a progressive order that is true on average. It makes sense that this is what happened when masses of workers found themselves in a situation where the third tier of needs could be satisfied in a home working environment in a way that could not happen at corporate headquarters and that in some cases, the experience activated the next levels of tiers.
People want to fulfill higher needs than mere subsistence. Community planners should be listening to what the working classes are saying as they seek solutions for worker housing but as yet there is no indication that leadership hears the needs of the people, beyond the most basic needs of survival, as leadership makes production plans for workforce housing in the midst of a growing housing and worker shortage, created not by an increase in population, but by the evolution of the entrenched system, that considers only the first two tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for the populous at or below the median income, while the systemic inclusion of growth and opportunity is proportionately invested in those that have a medium-income or higher, especially when including corporate personhood, which is a complex organization, legally construed as a person.
I use my small but growing megaphone to give voice to what is often otherwise unspoken in the public dialogue, continued in the comments section in the Boothbay Register, where new voices are entering the conversation with unique contributions. Credit to the Boothbay Register for allowing a public conversation to unfold.
The background I bring to the discussion is based on years of independent research into Maine economic development statutes and other histories. To understand the intent and impact of a law one must be aware of other acts and background information that are not explained in the statutes.
In a recent post, I examined the Maine statutes defining municipal fiscal policy and I also recently reviewed IRS information on donor transparency, which is required for a foundation but not for other channels of giving. The municipal statutes describe that a foundation may be created for receiving donations for public educational purposes but neither mentions nor prohibits other channels of giving for donations made for public educational purposes. Separate sections describe each channel for giving and by omission, the statutes allow private and anonymous conditional giving to any public cause, including the educational system. The only condition stated in the conditional gift statute is that the terms made in exchange for the gift must be honored in perpetuity. Not said is that the public may not necessarily know the identity of the donor nor the terms of the donor agreement that the public is obligated to honor forever. The statutes are the operating manual of the public-private for-profit non-profit wealth concentration and redistribution system-AKA modern-day capitalism
The public-private state is a capitalistic state, but the constitutional state is a philosophical system based on individual freedom from which the free enterprise system is emergent. The difference as I define it is that the capitalist state distributes wealth to achieve state ends. The free enterprise system exists in the private realm, outside of a state agenda and government capitalization.
The dominant focus of my newsletter has been on local Peninsula issues. The Boothbay Peninsula of Maine is a classic case of capitalism working counter to the democratic principle that government serves the people. The Peninsula has a very special case of public-private capitalism personified by a singular high-profile developer and his circle of anonymous “community members” who aggressively wield money as inordinate power. The developer and mostly anonymous associates are involved in almost every development project on the Peninsula with a vision to remake a historical middle-class rural community into an urban upstairs-downstairs corporate culture.
The recent transformation of Clifford Park is emblematic of the transformation undergoing across the whole peninsula.
Once there was a small playground for young children at a reasonable distance from the road in a natural environment nearby but at a safe distance to our main water supply, Adams Pond.
Along came developers who declared that the Park had lost its vitality. No one asked the parents and the children using the Park, representing the pre-existing inhabitants of the community, how they felt about it. The high-profile investor put up a sum that was matched by a federal grant for Land and Water Conservation-and outdoor recreational areas. The new development plans for the Park called for two new sports fields and so the children’s playground was moved up the hill to the side of the road where every side of the new play area for the youngest children is paved with asphalt. There is a tall mesh fence on one side of the playground but the side that faces the parking lot and the road does not have a fully protective fence. A child could easily run out into the roadways that surround the play area on all sides. The parents might consider looking for another location to establish a more protected playground.
By the standards of what makes a safe and protected play area for young children, the new park is a downgrade. By the standards of protecting the Adams Pond water supply, rated as endangered by further development since the late eighties, the many new asphalt parking lots and roadways are bad environmental news. One might think that the developers wanted to put in two playing fields for older persons and so they shoved the pre-existing playground for young children out of their way- proclaiming it to be an improvement simply because it is new and more complex, and in their view looks better.
Persons interacting with the pre-existing use were never part of the story. I do not know what they think about it because they have not been interviewed.
Because the singular developer has the intent to aggressively transform our Peninsula on such a massive scale, his ambitions bring into heightened focus the disconnect between statutory law written to establish the public-private State of Maine and the Constitution of Maine and the distinction between capitalism and the American political philosophy. The Boothbay Peninsula could be branded the Peyton Place of Capitalism. It makes for a good screenplay, but it is playing out in real life.
The only part of the massive plans of the “community members” development group which requires a public referendum is the eighty-million-dollar school. That school has been featured non-stop in a special section of the Boothbay Register since it was announced around July 2021. My newsletter, The Individual vs the Empire, and the Boothbay Register comments are the continuous alternate media voice where options can be conceptualized.
I also need to satisfy tiers one and two of the Maslow Hierarchies of Needs. Researching and writing these posts is work and even more important requires highly concentrated focus.
Therefore, I am doing a year-end subscription drive. The instructions for developing a funding campaign for my ceramics studio project suggested calculating how much it would take to raise one’s goal if every member of a targeted group gave an amount. I calculated that on my average readers per post and a year’s subscription. That would surpass my goal. I want this newsletter to remain free but at the same time, I want to remain free to use this newsletter to any end I choose and to maintain that freedom, I need to support it with subscriptions.
So Thank you for considering supporting this newsletter during this giving season!
I believe that in 2023 with the eighty million dollar school on the local ballot, and the State forming a Ten Year Planning commission allowing the State to guide municipal ordinances, this narrative needs to keep on growing- hopefully with some guest contributors!
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mackenzie Andersen, Creator, The Individual vs The Empire
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