Photo Credit: Troy Jackson (center in Bulls hats) speaks with Maine State Troopers during a week-long loggers blockade of the Maine-Canada border (Credit: Robert F. Bukaty | AP)
Hey yinz,
Greetings from the Burgh, where I am recovering from a respiratory infection, sleeping odd hours while working on developments around Graham Platner, which raise questions about whether corporate Democrats will affect progressives in Maine with the US Senate in balance.
Maine Delegate Elections Called to Elect Dem Senate Replacement
Several candidates are emerging, and the list of who may run is not fully known. However, many in labor and Bernie Sander are getting behind Troy Jackson, a logger's union leader and former president of the Maine State Senate. The 58-year-old Jackson ran for Governor and narrowly lost in the Democratic Primary.
However, Jackson developed a broad network of grassroots activists across the state who he hopes will support his election. Now, the challenge will be whether Jackson’s force can rally to elect hundreds of delegates at county committees around the state.
My buddy Dave Dayen at the American Prospect has a look at why the controversial special nominating convention can look:
The Maine Democratic State Committee has voted for a 600-person nominating convention, not a statewide caucus, as the method to select a replacement nominee for Graham Platner. Five hundred of the delegates will come proportionally from Maine’s counties, and then include the 100 state committee members.
While a statewide caucus was previously seen by my sources as a likely outcome, the state committee chose a different direction on Wednesday night.
This could easily torch whatever remaining goodwill exists between the party and supporters brought into Platner’s campaign, and bring back all of the unsavoriness associated with perceived backroom dealing. There is no real way to make a 600-person convention representative, and accusations of insiderism will proliferate. It also appears to conflict with the party’s stated goals for an inclusive process where supporters can participate, unless by “participate” they meant “watch online.”
For more, check out the American Prospect.
Jackson Lead Militant Logger Blockade of Canada
While many complained that Graham Platner, who hailed from a wealthy family, presented himself as a “working class” guy, the 58-year-old Jackson grew up in poverty in the north of the state and has a history of direct action as a unionized logger.
In 1998, Jackson helped lead a blockade of the Canadian border by loggers, designed to improve conditions for loggers in Maine. In 2019, Jackson wrote for the Bangor Daily News about why the miners' blockade matters for today’s movement:
Those of us who blocked the border knew the consequences. But we also knew what was at stake. We knew what would likely happen to us because we’d seen it before. Landowners had made examples of every brave worker who had stepped out of line to say what we were all thinking. But I knew that if something didn’t change, I would have to leave the industry forever. I had nothing to lose.
As a young father, I had a family to provide for, and the wages we were paid weren’t cutting it. The landowners were abusing a system designed to support an industry during workforce shortages. But there was no shortage of Mainers looking for work in the woods. The people who were supposed to represent me in Augusta and Washington weren’t doing next to nothing about it. Instead, they were accepting political donations on behalf of those corporate landowners.
By the time I was working in the woods, large landowners had already systemically stripped away workers’ rights by making loggers and haulers independent contractors instead of employees. At the time, folks had no idea how it would threaten our livelihoods.
The blockade was the product of generations’ worth of resentment among loggers and haulers, who were just trying to make a living. All we wanted was a chance to provide for our families, doing the work our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did before us. But we didn’t stand a chance in the fight against corporate landowners.
Things came to a head in October 1998, when we blocked the border to protest the illegal hiring of Canadian loggers over hardworking Mainers. Canadian loggers could work for less due to the exchange rate and their national health care system. We couldn’t compete. Landowners pitted workers against each other to grow their profits. They were getting away with breaking the law regarding hiring foreign workers — again. The Canadian government looks out for its citizens; all we wanted was our government to do the same.
For more, read Jackson’s piece in the Bangor Daily News.
Activists Need Honest Reporting to Win in Maine
This week, some said they were upset that I wrote about the Graham Platner story for the left. Our work explored how Platner was vetted and the history of some of the operators involved. (See “Platner’s Guru Daniel Moraff Asked Me to Lie for Him (I Didn’t).” )
The Graham Platner story shows why honest reporting about the movement is needed so that rank-and-file activists on the left aren’t sold leaders who will fail them. We, as a movement, need to be at our best right now.
A lot of people don’t like us speaking plainly, no matter how messy it is, but since our readers stand by us, Payday can tell the stories others won’t, and many want to hear the truth.
ICYMI: “Watching When We Were Bullies Vital to Prevent Another Graham Platner
Finally, as someone who has suffered a lot of online bullying for taking on corruption in the labor movement, I poured my heart into writing a piece today on how progressives dismissed well-documented online bullying by Platner. If you have a chance, do read it:
In 2012, Teddy Daniels, a US soldier in Afghanistan using a GoPro camera, recorded footage of himself being wounded, pinned down, and crying for help. Daniels then tried to upload an invite-only video link to YouTube to share privately with comrades and friends. However, the video accidentally went public.
Before Daniels could take the video down, a YouTuber found it and re-uploaded it. Daniels requested several times that the YouTube account take the video down, but was ignored. Instead, the video garnered over 23 million views (and thousands of dollars in ad revenue for the YouTuber), with many soldiers mocking Daniels, a recent recruit, for failing to follow proper procedures.
One of the soldiers who mocked Daniels online was Graham Platner, a Marine combat veteran.
"This video never gets old," joked Platner in a 2019 Reddit post. "Dumb motherfucker didn't deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home, he managed to make every possible shit decision possible when it comes to small unit combat."
Read the full piece here and watch the 36-minute Oscar-nominated documentary on HBO Max.
Alright folks, that’s all for today. I’m feeling better and will have a newsletter with labor links from around the later today. Keep sending tips, comments, and complaints to melk@paydayreport.com
