Category: Maine Currents

Maine Currents 3/9/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producer: Carolyn Coe
Engineer: Matt Murphy

Segment 1: Produced by Carolyn Coe. we hear from members of Veterans for Peace from this area who recently toured US military bases under construction in Japan and South Korea. FMI: www.vfpmaine.org

Segment 2: Interview and call in segment with local farmer and food rights activist Heather Retberg, about a proposed “right to food” amendment to Maine’s Constitution that will likely be taken up by the legislature next week. FMI: https://www.facebook.com/Food-for-Maines-Future-55928098548/

Maine Currents 3/2/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman

Today we’re opening the phone lines and asking “which candidate(s) do you support, and why?”. Our guests are local supporters of the Democratic and Green party candidates. (Numerous attempts were made to reach local supporters of the Republican candidates, by we received no response.)

Guests:
Betsy Garrold –past state party co-chair of the Maine Green Independent Party and currently serves as a Waldo County coordinator for the party.
Steve Godsoe — campaigning for Hillary Clinton.
Tim Wilson — volunteer supporting the Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign.

Maine Currents 2/24/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Indigenous rights attorney Sherri Mitchell of the Penobscot Nation, has been a regular guest here on WERU, and if you were tuned in this morning at 10, you heard the new Pacifica network show she cohosts called “Love (and Revolution). Today on Maine Currents we’re bringing you to a talk Sherri Mitchell gave at the University of Maine last week called “Ending Conquest Activism”.

FMI re “Love (and Revolution) radio”: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=52edd9c637ac7dc6228813e39&id=842fbb908f

Maine Currents 2/17/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman

Each year we kick off our live, overnight special coverage of the national Homelessness Marathon by checking in with folks from some of the local shelters to get an update on homelessness in this area. Today we’ll be talking what resources exist, how to access them, what is needed and what the community can do to help, with representatives from HOME in Orland and the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter

Guests:
Tracey Hair, Assistant Director and Gerald Botta, Shelter Dept., HOME Inc in Orland
Rowena Griffen, Executive Director and Dennis Pegues, Overnight Worker, Veteran and former guest at Bangor Area Homeless Shelter

FMI:
http://www.homemmausa.org/ http://www.bangorareashelter.org/

Maine Currents 2/10/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

It has been called “NAFTA on steroids” and “the largest corporate power grab you’ve never heard of”.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, is the largest regional trade deal in history, encompassing 12 countries that control 40% of the world’s economy, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia and several other Pacific Rim countries.

The TPP was negotiated in extreme secrecy for five years. Other than sections leaked by wikileaks, the public, the media and even elected officials were kept in the dark. President Obama had promised the public would have plenty of time to read it before he signed the agreement. The 6000+ pages long document was finally released in November, and Obama signed it last week. There is now a 2 year deadline by which the agreement must be ratified by the processes used in each country that signed on. In the US that means Congress needs to pass it. They voted last year to give the President fast track authority, which means they can now only vote “yes” or “no” on the agreement, having given up their power to make any amendments.

Obama says the TPP will open new markets and create new jobs. Similar arguments were made for the passage of NAFTA in the 90s and history has proven that to not be the case. Here in Maine the impact of so-called “free trade” agreements has been seen in the massive loss of manufacturing jobs. It was with those years of experience with NAFTA, CAFTA and other “free trade” agreements that Mainers came out to express concerns about the TPP

FMI:
Full text of the TPP: https://ustr.gov/tpp/#text
Maine’s Citizen Trade Policy Commission: http://www.maine.gov/legis/opla/citpol.htm
The Presidential Candidate’s positions on the TPP: https://ballotpedia.org/2016_presidential_candidates_on_the_Trans-Pacific_Partnership_trade_deal

Maine Currents 2/3/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Audio contributed by John Greenman

Segment 1: Bill Farrell, a University of Maine Ph.D. Candidate and Senior Advisor on Special Projects, for the international nonprofit Mercy Corps. speaking at the University last week on “The Syrian Refugee Crisis”.

Segment 2: We bring you to last week’s town council meeting in Bucksport, where a vote was held on withdrawing the town’s legal support of the state in Penobscot Nation v Mills, a lawsuit between the state and the Penobscot Nation.

Maine Currents 1/13/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Tomorrow will be a historic day in Augusta, as orders to impeach Governor LePage will be introduced and debated by the Maine House of Representatives. And whether the impeachment order ultimately succeeds or not, supporters say LePage’s behavior must be addressed.

Today on Maine Currents we’ll be talking with two of the grassroots organizers behind the efforts to impeach LePage, Rebecca Halbrook and Hendrik Gideonse. We’ll hear from Dawn Neptune Adams, the woman who was shouted down by LePage supporters as she tried to speak at a pro-impeachment rally last week. And we’ll talk with the sponsor of the impeachment order, Representative Ben Chipman of Portland.

FMI re the grassroots efforts to impeach LePage: https://www.facebook.com/ImpeachGovLePage/?fref=ts

Maine Currents 1/6/16

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Today we do a 2015 year in review with clips from stories about Divest UMaine, an investigation by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, Kim Ervin Tucker, scientists and lobstermen opposing the Searsport dredging project, the fight over mining regulations in Maine, the NRDC and Maine People’s Alliance’s federal lawsuit over the mercury pollution in the Penobscot River, Mainers opposing the TPP, and a story by Naomi Graychase , recording at “Bucksport, Then and Now”, and more — and we look ahead to 2016!