RESISTANCE TO FEUDALISM

Our new governator in Maine has added to the state welcome sign a new bit that reads "Open for business". Basically this means he wants to turn Maine into a total corporate colony.

Mr. LePage, elected in a three-way race by a whopping 38%, formally was the CEO of a cheap discount chain called Marden's.

So some friends made a big banner with some Marden's type-themes on it and posed for the photo above. (Click on the photo for a better view.) Quite fitting.

The governator just returned from his week-long vacation trip to Jamaica. In his Saturday radio address he said he wants Maine to be more like our neighbor New Hampshire which historically has been a model of right-wing governance - "Live free or die," free market, no-tax, few social programs, few government regulations - you get the idea. Yes, a corporate colony.

At the same time we witness the "big deal" that was cut in Washington DC last night to "save the federal government from shutdown". The deal will slash another $40 billion from social programs as the Republican controlled House of Representatives, the Democrats, and Obama continue their relentless assault on social progress. This $40 billion is equal to what the Pentagon spends on the Afghanistan occupation in about three months. But we are not supposed to notice.
In many respects the public is stunned and listless. They have no feeling that their voice matters in the face of the 24-7 corporate onslaught that is shattering the country these days. How can you claim to be a democracy when the people basically have their hands tied behind their backs and a gag on their mouth? The ever increasingly rich oligarchy has the bases covered with the courts, the media, and the majority of the politicians in their pocket.

Humanity has seen feudalism before. It still exists in many parts of the world today - like in Saudi Arabia. Many countries though had thought they had broken the backs of feudalism and moved on to democracy. But the global corporate forces are making their comeback. In some places they are using military force to retake control. In countries like the U.S. it is a mean-sprited budgetary process that is returning us to the days of lords and masters by cutting back on public education, health care, retirement security, and more.

Our new governator in Maine is already sending the message to workers that they must forget their noble history of social gains through unionization and must relearn to bow and scrape before the business overlords. We shall see how much of this shit the public is willing to swallow. History also shows that eventually people have enough of it and react. Time will tell.

Some of us though are already at that point and will keep refusing to bow to those who say we must be their servants. Resistance to the new feudalists is the only way back to real justice and sanity.