MAINE COMPASS: Freedom from want is every Maine resident’s right

From the Kennebec Journal

Maine’s new governor is beginning the work of coping with an $700 million shortfall in funding for existing programs.

It is not a task to be envied, and making grandiose claims such as refusing all federal funding won’t make the task of facing up to reality any easier. If federal funds are not available to maintain and repair roads, or plow them, for example, economic consequences will be felt by all Mainers who rely on trucks bringing food and medicine up Interstate 95.

Once upon a time, we thought Norman Rockwell accurately represented the freedoms we cherish in his famous paintings. His picture of a grandmother putting a roast turkey on the table for her assembled family was titled “Freedom from Want.”

We once thought this an essential freedom, the foundation of a secure social order.

During my lifetime, however, poverty has grown so that now one of every seven people in the United States live below the poverty level. For children, it is one of every five, meaning that 20 percent of the nation’s children live in households where adults must choose whether to pay rent or buy food, because they cannot afford to do both.

Maine is poorer than average, and the county I live in, Somerset, is among the poorest in Maine.

I met recently with members of the Maine Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Coalition to examine their vision of a society I would want to live in.

I will lobby to have my taxes support this vision rather than funding more than 800 U.S. military bases around the globe, and occupations that make us no safer.

I think Norman Rockwell would have approved of these goals.

• Every individual has a right to have basic needs met, including food and clothing, permanent housing, health care, child care.

• Every individual has a right to an income that provides the basic needs of the family, through productive employment and/or through entitlements.

3) Every individual has a right to freedom from discrimination in obtaining basic needs; seek one’s choice of employment; productive work with equal pay for equal or comparable work at a liveable wage; protections against the ill-effects of unemployment; a standard of living that is adequate for security and well-being.

• Every individual has a right to form and join labor unions and other groups that protect their interests; bargain collectively on issues such as pay and working conditions; work in businesses or cooperatives with opportunities for economic democracy; strike without fear of reprisals.

• Every individual has a right to education or training to obtain the skills that allow participation in and contribution to the Maine economy.

• Every individual has a right to access financial services, including, but not limited to, savings or checking accounts, loans and IRAs.

• Every individual has a right to access quality legal services regardless of ability to pay.

This sounds like the kind of Maine I want for my children and grandchildren.

Lisa Savage of Solon is Maine local coordinator for Codepink, a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars and redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.