Community Voices for Change

Description

Community Voices for Change is a talk show highlighting the work of individuals and organizations working to enhance the greater good of communities. Producer and Host Richard Rudolph begins each show with music from Sam Cooke’s Ain’t That Good News Album -“A Change is Gonna Come”. The show is also based on the writings of Howard Zinn and other writers who believe if we can get organized “Small acts” multiplied by hundreds, thousands of people we can transform our communities, the state and even possibly the world. Our sound engineer is Dennis Kirkpatrick.

Please scroll down below to see program descriptions and to gain access to the most recent shows (last five weeks) that have been archived.

12/2/24.  Our guest was Nacole Palmer who is the executive director of the Maine  Gun  Safety Coalition.  The show focused  on her agency’s effort to get a red flag law on the Maine ballot next year.  The Maine State Legislature considered adopting such a law last Spring, but it was never voted on by the full House or Senate.  The law would enable law enforcement to ask for  a court order that temporarily removes guns from an individual who is at serious risk of harming themselves or others with a firearm and prohibits the person from buying new guns.  She pointed out that 21 states have adopted red flag or extreme risk protection orders including Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

11/25/24.  Our guest was Craig Freshly who is a professional meeting facilitator,  public speaker, trainer and author of several books including Together We Decide: an Essential Guide for Good Croup Decisions published in 2022.  The  show focused on what is needed for groups to make good decisions  and how to talk to each other across the political divide.  Craig also talked about the make shift coffee houses which were held in Brunswick and elsewhere in the state regarding this matter.

11/18/24..  Our guest was Andy O’Brien who is the communication director for the Maine AFL-CIO.  The show focused on a recent piece that Andy has written and was published at the AFL-CIO blog entitled – “A History of Anti-Catholicism and Xenophobia in Maine.”  He pointed out there isn’t any thing new about anti-immigrant rhetoric which is meant to stoke anger, fear and resentment.  Wealthy corporations and their hand picked politicians have used racism and xenophobia to divide the working class for hundreds of years.  It’s a tactic that has been used repeatedly over the centuries. 

11/11/24.  Our guest was Dr. Quixada Moore-Vissing, the founder and Principal of Public Engagement Partners. The show focused on a just released report entitled Strengthening Maine’s Civic Life: Trust, Belonging, and the Future.  She talked about some of the key findings:  Maine ranks first in the nation in attending public meetings and participating in groups, but a plurality of residents experience barriers to civic participation including lack of information about civic engagement opportunities and a feeling that their participation will not make a difference to public outcomes.  70% of Maikners are hopeful about the future but there are reasons to be concerned that this is a fragile, rather than a stable or working consensus.  Most Mainers are pessimistic about the future of Maine’s children, with majorities believing tha they will have to leave home in order to find economic opportunity and security.

11/4/24.  Our guests were Bambi Jones and David Traci Moskovitz who are the first Mainers to win the New England Leopold Conservation Award since it was established in 2003.  The show focused on what that they have done on their farm and their work creating Hidden Valley Nature Center in Jefferson, Maine.  Established in 2009 as a nonprofit educational organization, Hidden Valley Nature Center has over  1,000 acres of protected land with campsites and miles of trails.  Nature and forestry programs have been offered to thousands of participants over the center’s 15 years in operation.  They sold the center to the Midcoast Conservancy 2016,, The Center’s management is focused on enhancing the value of timber, wildlife habit, water quality and recreation.

10/28/24.  Our guest was Steven Miller who is one of the Isleboro Island Trust Founders who has served as the executive director since 1985.  The show focused on off shore wind technology and why his organization is opposed to siting an offshore wind port on Sears Island.  He talked about the negative impacts it would have and stated it should instead be  built on Mack Point  which seems to be the best option given price and environmental impact.

10/21/24. Our guest was Kevin Young who is an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst.  The show focused on his new book entitled Abolishing Fossil fuels: Lessons from movements that WON.  The movement to end slavery, the battle for worker rights in the 1930’s, the black freedom struggles of the 1960’s and the fight for clean air in the 1970’s provide invaluable lessons which show how we can win a global green transition that is both rapid and equitable by building a multiracial, working-class climate movement.

10/14/24.  Our guest was Andrea Freeman who is a pioneer in the field of food politics and is the second century chair at the South Western Law school in Los Angeles.  She has recently written a brilliant new book entitled Ruin Their Crops on the Ground:  The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School lunch.  The book traces the long standing alliance between government and food industries that have produced gaping racial health disparities by the marketing of unhealthy goods that target marginalized communities, causing diabetes, high blood pressure and premature death.

10/7/24.  Our guest Ethan Strimling, a former Mayor of Portland, Maine,  talked about an option piece which was recently published in the Maine Beacon entitled “Maine Voters are on the Left -Dem lawmakers should govern for them”.   Ethan talked about the poll  that showed that 99% who identified as Democrats said they are center or left of center with 70% saying they are fully left.  The same poll showed that 9% identified as socialists including 19% of registered Democrats.  Given this information, Strimling believes Democratic leaders should start governing from that understanding instead of trying to placate a tiny conservative minority moving to the right, they should be listening to the majority of us.

9/30/24.  Our guest was Tom Schaller is a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.  He is the co-author of five different books including his most recent one entitled White Rural Rage, The Threat to American Democracy.  The book explores why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and that they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions.   He points out that despite legitimate grievances rural whites are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs in conspiracy theories and accept violence as a legitimate course of political action.

9/23/24.  Our guest was Arthur Phillips who is an economic policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy.  Last year,  he created a blog entitled Farmers deserve the same rights as all workers.  More recently he compiled a Farmer Workers Rights – An Explanation.  The show focused on Maine farworkes, who they and what rights are denied and what can be done about it.

9/16/2024. Our guest was Rob Okum who is the editor of a book entitled VoiceMale: The Untold Story of the Pro-feminist Men’s Movement which was published in 2014.  More recently Rob has written a column entitled “The Fifty-Year old New Masculinity” in the Northampton Gazette.  The show focused on  the state of the fifty year old movement and what needs to be done going forward.  Rob  pointed out that masculinity based on domination and emotional rigidity has failed men and that men have been working for five decades to replace those traits with compassion and vulnerability and they aren’t going back.

9/9/2024. Our guests was Todd Morse who is running as a District One candidate to serve on Portland, Maine City Council. Todd talked about what he hopes can be accomplished if elected. He talk about the need for affordable housing and social housing. He also talked about the need to redesign the Franklin arterial which would make the street safer, more accessible and more convenient to cross. It also would free city-owned land for affordable or public housing in the heart of the city and would enable the city to sell a portion of the property to fund new housing and avoid relying on property taxes. He also mentioned that the city should fund 15 minute transit service. This could be accomplished by designing certain areas as Transit Districts to capture tax revenue and use it to improve transit in those areas of the city.

9/2/2024. Our guest was Mathew Emmick, the director of the Dr. Charles A. Scoundras Labor Center at the University of Southern Maine. He talked the importance of Labor Day and how it relates to the goals of the labor center. He also talked about what the center has been able to accomplish in its first year and the work that it is doing with the Labor Climate Action Council to sponsor a meeting taking place on September 28 entitled Just Transition: Building Worker and Community Power to Tackle the Climate Crisis.

8/26/2024. Our guest was Austin Fredrick, the author of Barons: Money, Power and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry which was published earlier this year by Island Press. Barons is a wake up call about the food in our grocery stores. While we like to believe that most of our food is grown on family farms with pastured livestock and tidy croplands doting the countryside that isn’t the case at all. His book reveals the barons behind the brands, the families who have amassed fortunes in agriculture and food production by controlling markets and sweetheart public policy. Austin also talked about what can be done to reduce their power such as banning anti-competitive practices such as slotting fees and eliminating the massive subsidies for a handful of commodity crops in the farm bill.

8/19/2024. Our guest was Myles Smith who is a co-founder of Mainers for Smarter Transportation which is a coalition of individuals and groups that formed to advocate for an alternative to highway expansion in Greater Portland. He talked about why the organization is opposed to the Gorham Connector. He focused on its high costs, negative environmental impacts and how it will increase traffic and reduce quality of life. Overall, he believes the proposal is illogical and short sighted and is counter to the direction Maine should be going.

8/12/2024. Our guest were Peter Cole, the new president of the Maine Rail Group, Douglas Rooks who is an author and journalist and Jack Duffin who works at the Conway Scenic Railroad in New Hampshire. The show focused on the ongoing effort to restore and expand passenger rail in Maine and how it is vital to folks living in central and northern Maine. They also talked about what can be done to save the Mountain Division line and the “Lower Road”. Maine Department of Transportation plans to tear up the tracks on these state owned rail lines to make way for bicycle/ walking paths.

8/5/2024. Our guest was David Montero, the author of a new book entitled The Stolen Wealth of Slavery: A case for Reparations. Montero provides concrete evidence that much of the earth generat3d by slaves in America ended up in the hands of merchants and banks in New York City. For the most part they were opposed to abolition and inste4ad supported the colonization movement. To date only Morgan Chase is the only American company that has offered any type of restitution for profiting from slavery

July 29,2024. Our guest was Grayson Lookner who is running for a third term in the Maine State Legislature representing District 113 . He is also running for and at large seat in the Portland City Council. He talked about the housing crisis in Maine and how social housing could help solve this problem. He also talked about criminal justice reform and what can be done to reduce the effects of climate change.

July 22, 2024. Our guest was John Huer, a retired university professor and author of Dead End, The Psychology and Survival of the American Creed which was published in 1977. He talked about a recent op-ed piece that he wrote about how we are witnessing an astonishing historical event no human being has ever seen before a nation voluntarily abandoning its democracy to welcome autocracy and very possibly fascism and why it is happening.

July 15, 2024. Our guest today was Hamilton Nolan the author of The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the STRUGGLE For the Soul of Labor recently published by Hatchet Books, New York. He talked about the myriad problems that workers face in this country such as poverty level wages, plant union busting and the obscene levels of income inequality. He also talked about the failure of some of the largest unions for not doing more such as organizing and fighting for workers.

July 8, 2024. Our guests today were David Vine, professor of Anthropology at the American University and Isa Arroyo who is a Northern Mariana Islander cultural anthropolgist and indigenous rights activist from Saipan. They are co-authors of a recently published article entitled “The Military Industry Complex is Killing US All.” They talked about the fact that not much has changed since President Eisenhower warned Americans about it in his fawell address. The total annual military budget is far greater than most people realize. 1.5 trillion a year is spent. This is monstrously out of portion to the few military threats facing the U.S. and primarily benefits military contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing and General Dynamics.

July 1, 2024. Our guest today was Wes Pelletier who is running for the Portland City Council 2nd district seat. The show focused on what can be done regarding the lack of affordable housing in the city such as enforcing and strengthening rent control, building social housing, restricting short term rental to owner occupied and give renters the right of first refusal to buy apartments put up for sale. He also talked about what can be done in the transportation sector to encourage people to rely less on having a car to get to work or to go shopping for essentials. The issue of tax fairness was also addressed as well as what can be done to make Portland more livable.

June 24, 2024. Our guest today was Marita Canedo, Program Director, Migrant Justice which is a grassroots organization in Vermont involved in the Milk with Dignity Program. This program brings together farm workers, farmers, buyers and consumers to secure dignified working conditions in the dairy supply chains. The program enlists the resources of the food industry leaders, such as Ben & Jerry’s that have made legally-binding commitments to protect workers’ human rights Those participating buyers provide a premium to participating farms that agree to work towards compliance with the labor standards in the Milk with Dignity Code of Conduct. The premium supports farms’ compliance with the code and rewards farms that comply.

June 17, 2024. Our guest today was Kathy Kilrain del Rio who is the advocacy and program director at Maine Equal Justice. The show focused on the organization’s efforts to get legislation passed which would provide rent relief to thousands of Mainers in response to an increase in evictions and soaring housing costs. Maine continues to experience a severe housing crisis. Rents are too high and cities and towns can’t solve growing housing problems on their own, while the state has a surplus, and expertise that could help. Rent relief under LD1710 would help people who need it the most, who are not being helped buy other federal or state programs, and can quickly reduce evictions while more homes are built and protect tenants from discrimination based on their source of income.

June 10, 2024. Our guest today was Senator Ben Chapman who is now running for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives. The show focused on why he is running and what he hopes to accomplish if elected to this office. He talked about the current housing crisis and the need for social housing and efforts to combat climate change in the state such as restoring passenger rail from Portland to Bangor, Maine.

June 3, 2024. 11:30-Noon, Our guest today was Kate Sykes who was elected to the Portland City Council last November representing District 5. The show focused on some of the issues that the city council has addressed since last year’s election. She talked about the homeless problem in the city and the role that the city, state and federal government must play to address the root causes of homelessness – unaffordable housing, wages that haven’t kept pace with the cost of living, privatized healthcare, and structural racism that perpetuates economic justice along racial lines.

May 27, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Sarah Alexander, the executive director of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association talked about the ongoing efforts regrding PFAS which are toxic forever chemicals which have been found in municipal sludge which has been spread on farms in Maine and elsewhere over the last three decades. On May 14, MOFGA filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. EPA for failure to regulate the application of sludge contaminated with PFAS chemicals under the Clean Water Act passed in 1987.

May 2o, 2024. 11:30 -Noon. Gia Drew, the executive director of Equality Maine talked about the recent surge of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric around the country. Law makers have advanced a record number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in state legislatures. These bills target transgender and nonbinary people and seek to regulate nearly every aspect of their lives – from access to health care and bathrooms to the ability to play sports and change their legal documents to reflect their gender identity. Other policies seek to censor LGBTGQ+ topics in the classroom, out LGBTQ+ students to their parents, rollback protections against anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and conversion therapy, and rigidly define sex as male and female in legal codes. Gia also talked about what’ s happening in Maine and what can be done to offset the surge of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in the state.

May 13, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Our guest today was Thomas Harnett who is a former Mayor of Gardiner, Maine who has also served in the Maine Legislature from 2018-2023. He has also recently served as a Legal Policy Advisor to Rachel Talbot Ross, the Maine Speaker of the House. The show focused on Governor Janet Mills veto of several different farm bills which would have made farm workers eligible to earn the minimum wage which is currently $14.15 per hour in Maine. Thomas talked about the impact that the Governor’s vetoes have had on farm laborers in the state and how farm workers are treated in the other New England States.

May 6, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Our guests today were two women: Linda Small and Mackenzie Kelley who were previously incarcerated in the Maine Prison System. Linda is the founder and executive director of Reentry Sisters, a brand new reentry support organization specializing in a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach for women, serving in Maine prisons and beyond. MacKenzie Kelly who is also a formerly incarcerated woman works at the Maine Prisoner Re-entry Center as a reentry specialist, peer support and recovery coach. She is the program director for Reentry Sisters. Both Linda and Mackenzie talked about the need for the new Reentry Sisters organization and what they believe can be achieved going forward.

April 29, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Our guest was Wren Patton who is a member of the national DSA organization which has recently established an eco-socialist working group. Its mission is to ensure that the transition to socialism in the U.S. is based on sound ecological principles, preserving the viability of the natural and human environments for future generations and other forms of life, while keeping in mind the historical and present inequities imposed by prior forms of society. Wren also talked about how the DSA’s Green New Deal differs from other environmental campaigns that have been waged in the past as well as groups which are currently involved today.

April 22, 2024. 11:30-N00n. Our guest was Kathy Leighton who is the executive director of the Restorative JusticeProject base in Belfast Maine. The show focused on the agency’s effort to promote justice that is community based, repairs harms, and creates safety and creates well-being for all. The show also focused on the agency’s latest effort to establish a restorative justice program for drug offenders. Natasha Irving the D.A. for Sagadahoc, Lincoln, Knox and Waldo counties believes this new program has the potential to keep more of its graduates out of prison and in the community, which is one of the court’s overreaching goals.

April 15, 2024. 11:30 -Noon. Our guest was James Myall who is a policy analyst at the Maine Center for Economic Policy. He talked about an opinion piece which he has recently written entitled “Asylum seekers benefit Maine’s economy – lawmakers need to support them”. He mentioned that a new major study conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reveals that the cost to all levels of government providing support for asylum seekers and refugees during the period of 2005-2019 was offset by the estimated tax revenue from these individuals. He also mentioned there is evidence of benefits from immigration as well in the short run.

April 8, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Our guest was Scott Buddy, who is the Director of Policy for the Maine Labor Climate Council. He talked about LD2266, a bill that would grant a permit under the Natural Resources Protection Act for an offshore wind port that would remove a coastal sandbar off of Sears Island. He talked about the advantages of floating offshore wind turbines and mentioned that there are advantages for sighting the facility on Sara Island compared to Mack Point. Regardless of which site is selected he assured listeners that Maine workers would benefit.

April 1, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Our guest was Wendy Allen who served as the Young Adult Diversion Program lead and Advocate Design lead for the Restorative Justice Institute of Maine. She talked about the Young Adult Diversion Program which prover community based court diversion grounded in restorative practices in Cumberland and Androsoggin counties. Unfortunately, the program has been canceled because of the lack of funds.

March 25, 2024,. 11:-30 – Noon. Our guest was Daniel Czitron who is a professor emeritus of history on the Ford Foundation at Mount Holyoke College. The show focused on a column that he has written which was published in the Northampton Gazette entitled “Beyond the the Mideast Binary.” We talked about how the American news media outlets and political figures have framed the ongoing conflict largely aa narrow binary choice. Either one stands with Israel or supports the resistance, no mater the excesses and brutality on either side. He argues that we need to educate ourselves beyond tje simple binary of Israel v. Hamas.

March 18, 2024. 11:30 – Noon. Our guest was Kevin Van Meter who is a teaching fellow at the Charles A. condras Center for Labor and Community Education at the University of Southern Maine. The show focused on why unions matter today and what he hopes to accomplish at the new center. The discussion focused on a number of issues including what can be done to address the grotesque inequality in wealth which exist and the anti-labor bias of the political system in the U.S.

March 11, 2024. 11:30-Noon. Our guest was Sam Lovejoy an anti-nuclear activist who cut down a 500 ft weather tower in Montague, Mass in February 22, 1974. Northeast Utilities was planning to build a nuclear power plant. Sam action was an act of civil disobedience which led to the massive anti-nuclear movement in the 197o’s. Sam voluntarily turned himself in, was arrested and handed out a four page document explaining why it was necessary to engage in a public act of disobedience. A trial was held in the following year and the judge ultimately ended the trial on a technicality.

March 4, 2024. 11:30 -Noon. Our guest was Josie Phillips who is the state priorities Partnership Fellow at the Maine Center for Economic Policy. She conducts research into Maine’s tax and budget system and economy. We talked about her ideas regarding on how to secure housing for Mainers with low income and what’s wrong with Governor Janet Mills proposed supplementary budget.