The Independence Movement Converges with the Kamala Harris Vision.
What do you support? The further institutionalization of society-or shifting the paradigm?
This is the fourth quarter when every individual and institution is out to raise yearly funding, that is if the government allows individuals to increase their income. I recently heard a story about employees forced to take the whole month of December off lest their income exceeds the limit imposed by affordable housing. Maine’s new housing law LD 2003 makes short-term rentals the default zoning for the entire state and promotes ubiquitous income-capped housing zones in every municipality for year-round residents. I wonder what percentage of our population will be forced to take a month or more off every year, in 2034, to be “aligned with state law” that Income-caps housing for residents making up to 120% of the median income for an area, at various levels? That is a dystopian concept built into affordable housing that needs to be part of the conversation.
Kamala Harris gets it. Harris‘s language sets the stage for paradigm-shifting with words such as “aspire”. Income-capped housing oppresses aspirations, as a design to keep the bottom half of the economy in its place. There was a justifiable reason for housing income caps when it was only about low-income housing and housing options were diversified, but today the caps are being implemented throughout the bottom half of the economy as short-term rentals are making housing outside of planned developments unaffordable to people of ordinary means, scarce. Something has to change.
The state government won’t regulate short-term rentals. The municipalities could but they are tied like a yoke to the state government through the wealth redistribution system. The government collects a sales tax on short-term rental businesses that at 9% in Maine is higher than the general sales tax. As yet unconfirmed rumor has it that Airbnb made a deal with state governments to collect the sales tax on short-term rentals and in return, state governments ensure that zoning ordinances do not regulate the short-term rental industry. That might inform why the Commissioners (unelected legislators) who did the study for LD 2003 decided at the outset not to include short-term rentals in the study. In Home Rule states like Maine, the state does not have authority over municipal ordinances, by the Constitution, but the Constitution can’t compete with the chain of concentrated wealth redistribution as the practicing rule of law.
Aspirations are reserved for the top of the economy where subsidies for commercialization flow, managed by the Department of Economic and Community Development, an institution formed to serve the centralized economy of Maine presiding over a network of institutions established by the Maine Legislature after it replaced our constitutional government with the centrally managed economy. An examination of the ensuing policies enlightens how the great wealth divide was created and continues to expand until policies are instituted to reverse it.
Reversing the paradigm is the target of Harris’s vision. Lawrence O’Donnell’s commentary on MSNBC quotes Kamala Harris quoting Franklin Roosevelt who called for “bold persistent experimentation” during the depression, an attitude that pulled America out of those dark days. Today bold persistent experimentation is taking place in the drop-out culture, those who are going it on their own, seeing no future in the old model that the state continues to pursue. Those who have dropped out are building their own networks of support that include many new tech innovations that serve the community. Subscribing to the apps requires capitalization on a smaller scale than is needed for larger businesses. Monthly subscriptions add up, but the government does not subsidize growth and aspirations in the bottom half of the economy where the old American way of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps is still prevalent. Years ago there was a British TV show about an antique dealer. Every episode the dealer made a series of trades, starting with low-priced items to target a higher-end goal. It was a very well-done depiction of the pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps method of capitalization achieved through character development and humor.
In Maine, we need to develop alternatives to capped-income housing. See my project plan here. It’s not a plan for a solution but a plan for a method of developing solutions for an opportunity-based economy that involves subscriptions to apps for a group that collaborates on a project, but I don’t have a group yet. When I tried to submit this inquiry to the Grahan Foundation there was a glitch in the dates for the project field that would not allow me to proceed to the end and submit it. I wrote to the Foundation about it but no one responded so I could not submit my inquiry.
However, I would like to use the project on the Field but I have to figure out how to do that. That’s on my “To Do” list.
But today I am not concerned about that.
I see the nonprofits putting out their pitches and the retail business revving up for the biggest income-producing quarter of the year, and I have my potential income-producing streams for my individual brand to promote. They are: .
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Shows- My next show is a pop-up show at the Merry Barn. Saturday, October 5
My assortment of (hopeful) income streams typifies the new way that has emerged as workers walk away from the institutional systems that have been transferring public wealth into the hands of the few and leaving the workers’ standard of living to decline. Unique combinations of income streams crafted by the individual are like small boats in the ocean:
Usually in September, You will find me at Grimes Cove swimming in the waves but this year my car broke down, and being that this Peninsula has become so unaffordable to the working classes it now takes a couple of weeks just to get one’s car looked at. I have a SAAB so I now need to have to moved to a SAAB dealer and I anticipate a bill that will be a challenge to meet.
In the meantime I could not drive so I was stuck at home and I decided to make a video. The idea started simple and transformed into something else along the way. At first, I was going to make a video to present my Rugosa Rose art. I have a special place in my heart for the Rugosa Rose because it is a wild and natural rose that perpetually innovates its form, making it an interesting subject to photograph.
But as with writing a post, the idea started with one concept and evolved into something else before It was done. I thought it would be a simple technically enhanced version of a slide show of the rose going through transformations that I could complete in a couple of days but the project ended up taking two weeks. I kept asking myself, why am I doing this? No one will be interested because it’s too long and my video doesn’t have any video, it is completely composed of still shots and overall it doesn’t fit the guidelines.
However, once I began I had to follow the project through to completion. I can justify it as a learning experience since it has been several years since I made my last video. I had to find a new video program since I didn’t want to invest in a monthly subscription to Adobe so I bought the Movavi app and then discovered that MS 365 has a good video app. That is until I tried to export the completed work and the visual transitions were lost when I added the music to the video export file. Then I was glad I had the Movavi app because the video with the music exported flawlessly with Movavi, but I like the transitions in Microsoft 365.
At first, I wasn’t familiar with various resources for video music and my skills in cutting and combining music clips were rusty. The length of the music determined the length of the video.
Once I invested the time to familiarize myself with music options I opted for a monthly subscription to Artlist where I found several artists whose music I love. The music clips were shorter than the length of the video that I had developed but the clips seem designed for cutting and combining.
It takes time to listen to a music clip while watching a video. Determining what music is right for a video is an intuitive process that is accessed only through feeling it. It can’t be rushed. The visual process also involved watching the video over and over and listening to one’s own reactions. The transitions have to be timed just right and every change affects the timing of what comes afterward so one has to start at the beginning and get every step right from the start. That isn’t always the way it works out because listening to oneself often requires repeated calls for attention. After a while of doing this process, it gets easier to respond the first time.
I took a break from writing this post, headed over to Headlamp and started filling out my portfolio for videographer. The form calls for a narrative, which I was already composing in this post.
Composing and editing a video is much like composing and editing a newsletter post. Most of the time I have no idea where my post is going when I begin, including this post, and I discover its purpose in the process of creating the post. The same was true for the video. I discovered the purpose of the video was as an introduction to my Arts Store Front, displaying the variety of art and art merchandise that can be found there. Popular advice is to feature portraits of ourselves with our art. It’s as much about who we are as it’s about the art, we are told.
However, art is a way of communicating who we are. The red rose is an esoteric symbol of the Rosicrucians but I have never seen the Rosecritian rose portrayed as a red Rugosa rose. The Rugosa rose has all the symbolism imparted to the rose by the Rosicrucians but it has a special symbolism of its own. It is a wild uncultivated rose that represents nature unaffected by mankind but dwelling within us.
Managing many streams of activity is complex. There is not enough time in the day so I have been exploring social pilot apps. I discovered that Buffer offers a home page template that enables melding multiple activities together as a single identity. Here is Buffer Home Page.: There was a place for a video in the template so the video came in handy, answering my question” Why am I doing this?”
Today everyone is pitching for funding. Why should you fund my purpose through a paid subscription or foundational support?
Here’s why:
You are reading my newsletter. It offers information derived from many years of independent unpaid research. Because the process is self-directed I bring you information that is publicly available but not presented elsewhere. Because I am not part of the institutionalized system I deliver an outsider’s perspective on the institutionalized system. Because I have been studying the system for many years I can more easily decode its language.
Who else points out that Bond Question #2 on the upcoming Maine state ballot is missing a Senate and House roll call and asks why? To do so, one has to click on the link made available in the Boothbay Register article and explore the online menu. Most people don’t do that but I have an established process that I follow for verifying information. I like to know how my representatives voted on issues important to me, not merely their party affiliation.
On September 25th, I sent an FOAA request to the Secretary of State and asked for the roll calls. I received a response on the 27th reporting that they are working on it.
The wording in the Act suggests but does not say that the Maine Constitution requirement for a vote of approval from both houses was met.
Preamble
Two thirds of both Houses of the Legislature deeming it necessary in accordance with the Constitution of Maine, Article IX, Section 14 to authorize the issuance of bonds on behalf of the State of Maine to provide funds as described in this Act.
Technically that is an incomplete sentence and unnecessarily complicated. Why say that they deemed it was necessary? All that needs to be said is that two-thirds of both houses approved the bond as required by the Constitution of Maine, Article IX, Section 14, unless they didn’t. The sentence only states that they (Two-thirds of both houses) deemed it necessary but it does not state what they did. It reads like a smoke screen.
The answer I have received to my FOAA request talks around my question about the appropriations committee, as if to say, without saying, that there was no roll call because the decision was made by the appropriations committee. As if to say there was no vote in both houses of the legislature as if to say the state is being run as a corporation, not as a state. As if an executive committee makes the decision about the bond request, not the legislative body. But that wasn’t said. It could be that the legislative body votes on what the appropriations committee recommends and that hasn’t been said either. They are working on it.
Further exploration of information available online confirms that there were votes by the House and Senate but the Legislature uses the standard of 2/3rds of those present. The number of those present is not identified’
In the first instance, the Senate uses the term PASSAGE TO BE ENACTED.
According to the Google AI overview
Passage: A bill is passed by both houses of the legislature in identical form
In the last entry, the language in the Senate changes to “Taken by the President and subsequently Passed to be enacted-2/3 Elected Required in Concurrence”, but the House Record says the vote was by those present. Not in concurrence!
In 2020, there was a previous attempt to enact a bill also named An Act to Authorize a General Fund Bond Issue for Research and Development and Commercialization. This bill died. It called for 250 million dollars of public money to be redistributed to Maine’s institutional industrial sector.
The 2020 bill has the same words in the Preamble as the current act and also has no roll calls.
As with the school bonds referendum in Boothbay, it packages several bonds to be distributed over time in one voter approval request. The 250 million dollars would have been distributed at the rate of fifty million dollars a year for five consecutive years as unexamined funding to the Department of Economic and Community Development. The funds are matching funds so to qualify the project has to already be well funded and wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of the few. Technically a smaller amount of funding could be matched but that isn’t likely. I have never heard of programs categorically targeting smaller funded projects, not to say it doesn't;t exist but if it does it’s for the targeted sector only. The targeted sector is so narrowly defined that when I inquired about a grant for rural economic development at the federal level, I was told that the department didn’t know if ceramics qualifies as a rural industry.
So why support this newsletter?
Who else questions the Maine Legislature’s interpretation of the Maine constitutional requirements for a bond vote and the addition of the words “of those present” to the words found in the Constitution? We can’t shift the paradigm if we don’t ask the right questions
The questions I ask make a crack in the paradigm that has been transferring public wealth to the few for decades and in the process making everyone else poorer.
But it’s a lot of work and I have bills to pay. With greater economic support for this newsletter, I can invest in subscriptions that save time and invest in promotion.
And I can deal with my car issue.
So, when you are considering making contributions to established organizations, please also consider the outliers who have given up on the system as representing the interests of the working classes and are forming new pathways and networks with “bold persistent experimentation” at the grassroots level. Think about paradigm shifting! We now have a great voice for the cause in Kamala Harris. Vote for Kamala!