Op Ed

What Would the Northern Pass Mean for Main Street? Rep. Steve Rand, Owner of Rand Hardware, Explains.

Posted on July 14, 2017July 14, 2017 by gbaldwin

To: Counsel for the Public and Consultant Tom Kavet

I am very concerned about the impact of the Northern Pass project, should it be buried, as planned, down Main Street Plymouth. I am the third generation owner of Rand’s Hardware, a 110-year-old business right on Main Street in the heart of the Town. We employ 18 people in our business and are the only hardware store in Plymouth. Our business includes Blue Seal feeds, a full service rental department, the area’s only plumbing supply wholesale or retail outlet, service for our Stihl lawn and garden equipment and more usual hardware store items, all housed in three buildings, a total of about 20,000 square feet.

Main Street is the main artery of access to our business both for vehicles and for pedestrians. Anything that affects Main Street has an immediate impact on our business. We have worked hard to survive all the competitive forces that have been thrown our way over the years, including, in recent years, Wal-Mart, big box home improvement stores, internet providers like Amazon and smaller regional competitors, like Aubuchon and Tractor Supply. So far, we have survived to continue our tradition of service to our strong customer base. Our ability to serve these customers depends upon their ability to access our business. We are strictly a bricks and mortar operation.

If a huge project to bury high voltage power lines were to impose itself on our Main Street, we could lose half of our business during the worst of it. I understand that the project could tie up Main Street for at least 6 weeks, possibly 11 weeks. For calculation purposes, if it turns out to be 8 weeks, and we lost 1/2 of our business during this busiest time of our commercial year (April to July), we could expect to lose on the order of $100,000 in gross profit. As I understand it, there is no compensation offered to us as part of the package.

I am sure of these magnitude of consequences because of a similar experience that our business had in the Nineties, when the Town of Plymouth tore up the sidewalks and pavement on Main Street to install new curbing, paving, sidewalks and street lighting. The project took place over several months and involved extensive excavation, rebuilding of all sorts of infrastructure both above and below ground, resulting in a huge impact on customer flow. My guess is that its financial impact was less than what Northern Pass will be, because the project was done in stages and did not affect every business for the full duration. Although Rand’s survived, many of our neighbor-businesses did not. Main Street ended up with several vacancies and the business “tide” was lowered for all. Despite the negative impact, the town center did end up as a more pleasant, better looking place that has shown itself to be more conducive to customer visits in the many years since. Unfortunately, I expect no such “end of the day” positives from the Eversource plan.

I ask, then, why a for-profit company, Eversource, with a foreign partner, Hydro Quebec, who is simply using NH as a conduit to transmit electricity to MA, CT and RI, with no payment to the State of NH, and none announced for the Town of Plymouth, with no invitation from me, should cost me $100,000 in lost gross profit, without any consultation or compensation?

In addition, I ask what my customers, who rely on day to day access to our store for products, like horse and poultry feeds, nuts and bolts, rental equipment that they use to conduct their businesses, and plumbing supplies to repair problems, will need to do to accommodate the profit motive of this big-business multi-national organization? How will they be compensated for their inconvenience? How far will they have to travel to find a replacement source? Once they have found a new source, will they ever return to my store as their continuing provider?

I am sure that the cost to my business will not occur only during the project period. Rand’s has spent over 100 years earning the shopping habits of its customers. For that habit to be interrupted over 2-4 months means that they may form new habits that could exclude Rand’s as their main or preferred vendor. Additional hundreds of thousands of lost sales dollars could occur over the years.

This is pure madness, and I reject the idea that any justice would be served by this arrangement. For me, this is more than a financial risk. It is a threat to my lifestyle and the preferred lifestyles of the people of Plymouth and surrounding towns. We should be allowed to enjoy dealing with our challenges and small victories without having to deal with somebody else’s need to make a profit.

As I read the research it is clear to me that there is no impending emergency or civilization-threatening need for the project as it is now proposed. The alternative site, the buried line down I-93, as provided by the newly-designated energy corridor of the State of NH, is the only plan that enjoys the support of the Town of Plymouth, as voted by us. To bring the line down Main Street and Route 3 might be a temporary advantage to Eversource, but a huge pain to the public and a life-threatening menace to businesses like mine.

Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf to see that the real costs of this project are known and incorporated into the decision process of the SEC. I am available at any time for testimony or further information. As you can see, I am willing to open my financials in order to see that the understanding of impacts is substantiated.

Yours Sincerely,

Steve Rand
NH State Representative, Grafton Dist 8

A. M. Rand Company (Rand’s Hardware)
71 Main Street, Plymouth NH 03264

A steady stream of injustices does not earn Republicans moral superiority

Posted on June 16, 2017 by gbaldwin

By Gunnar Baldwin, Jr.

The narrow passage of the American Health Care Act in the U.S. House of Representatives is a powerful call to action for any citizen who has a conscience. Almost daily since the inauguration we have heard news of another executive or legislative action that will create additional hardships for the poor, the sick, the aged, minorities, the foreign-born, and those affiliated with the wrong gender. Through no fault of their own, vast numbers of people have been transformed into scapegoats – parasites obstructing the Great White American Dream. The government actors who are busily crafting policies to deny them equitable treatment are simultaneously staking their claim to the moral high ground. This is now even more true, since offices designed to protect civil rights will not be given priority or full funding under Trump’s administration and the Department of Justice headed by Jeff Sessions.

It is time for Democrats to expose this farce as starkly and succinctly as the young boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes. The inconsistency between minimum standards of ethical behavior and the wholesale disregard for the plight of the least fortunate in our society is happening in plain sight and could not be more obvious. Trump, who framed his campaign on protecting the interests of the little guy, is pursuing an agenda that is diametrically the opposite, openly and without reservation channeling resources away from programs that aid these constituents and straight to the pockets of his fellow billionaires.

For me, the myth of Donald Trump as a champion for the working class embodies the fundamental difference in assumptions underlying the Democrat and Republican parties. Republicans operate under the assumption that federal and state government bodies owe nothing to anyone, ignoring the fact that vast disparities in wealth reflect disparities in opportunity rather than different work ethics. Although Paul Ryan has stated that “We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning to value the culture of work,” the truth is starkly different. Persistent unemployment is much more often the result of decades of neglect and underfunding of public schools, after school programs, vocational training, and the lack of other opportunity-building programs in poorer neighborhoods.

A child born to a poor family in the US faces formidable barriers to educational and economic advancement. A child born to a wealthy family is more likely to expect a streamlined path to opportunity. The Republican assumption ignores how different segments of the population became poor or wealthy in the first place. To a significant extent, current income disparity in the US is structurally built on the lingering impacts of slavery and the exploitation of waves of immigrants from disfavored ethnicities.

A second flawed assumption underlying the views of many Republicans is the idea that bad things only happen to other people. Like it or not, we are all participants in a commonly-shared risk pool that includes natural disasters, health threats, violent crime, bankruptcy, and other threats. We do not get to opt out. Yet many people do not recognize this fact until they need expensive cancer treatment or their home is ruined by a flood. And proactive measures to prevent many types of harm are deemed expensive and wasteful.

Moral bankruptcy is the Achille’s heel of the Republican Party. The myth of moral superiority is a central pillar holding up the house of smoke and mirrors that calls itself conservatism. The mindset that poverty and poor health are always the result of irresponsibility, immorality, and laziness is the convenient argument that absolves government of having to intervene on anyone’s behalf. It the pretext that allows wealthy senators to spend their days crafting new tax cuts for themselves and their colleagues instead of working for constituents who are struggling with two jobs to cling to the bottom of the economic ladder.

Under the guise of shrinking big government (code for shrinking their fair share of the tax burden), the Administration and its allies are funding tax loopholes and subsidies for favored industries by slashing budgets for education, cancer screenings, vocational training, early intervention programs, opioid hotlines, and veterans’ benefits.

Finally, while the Republican Party cultivates the myth that the less fortunate are the problem obstructing America’s return to greatness, its messengers are consistently supported by Evangelical conservatives. As long as the magic words “pro-life” are uttered, the budget for virtually any program that supports the lives of infants, growing children, and adults is fair game for the chopping block. It is time for Democrats to burst the bubble in which US conservatism exists and challenge the mindset that allows the giant cop-out that is central to its approach to government.

We do not need to look far to see how the President’s agenda is leading to a perverse reversal of campaign priorities when it comes to fixing the most pernicious problems here at home, notably with respect to healthcare. Although Trump made a campaign promise to help end the opiod crisis, the American Health Care Act actually exascerbates this problem. By cutting healthcare funding across the board to fund tax breaks for the top 1%, the AHCA erodes already inadquate resources for responding to one of New Hampshire’s most vexing challenges. It spotlights the greatest bait-and-switch America has ever seen in the arena of campaign promises: the wide gulf between rhetoric and following through with funding that exemplifies conservative politics today.

Why I Am a Democrat

Posted on May 26, 2017May 26, 2017 by gbaldwin

Why am I a Democrat?

As I sit down to write this, we are in a moment of unparalleled Constitutional crisis. The head of the FBI has just been fired by the President in a move that can only be described as a not-so-subtle attempt to derail the Bureau’s investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. The GOP is waging a war on women’s bodies, voting rights, education, and the environment. They are seeking to unravel the threads of democracy, restore inequality and control of the few over the many. This, friends, is a terrifying time, a waking nightmare. If you feel this way, please know that you are not alone.

Part of this crisis involves a larger philosophical question about semantics, the meaning of words, a field of study which has been uncannily politicized these days. Accusations of “fake news,” and the wielding of “alternative facts” and false equivalencies are all part of this administration’s attempt to gaslight this country into authoritarian control and submission. Words are emptied of meaning – freedom, access, choice cloak the forces of white supremacy, misogyny, bigotry, and xenophobia. It is not a coincidence that Orwell’s 1984 has returned to the bestseller’s list. Trump’s mandate, like that of Big Brother, is that we believe the party over the proof of our own eyes and ears.

Being a democrat means understanding what these words – freedom, access, choice – really mean, and what they should mean, to us as citizens of the world’s oldest democracy.

At this point, it would be useful to introduce myself and give you some background on me and my family.

First and foremost, I, Dr. Emma Van Ness, am an educator. I teach at Plymouth State as an adjunct, the exploited lower class of higher education. My specialization is twentieth century Italian studies, especially post-war Italian cinema, including neorealism. I teach Italian language and film classes, Sex and Cinema and Deviants in Cinema, classes which focus on psychos, sociopaths, Nazis, Fascists, and criminals. So as you can see, I am particularly qualified to criticize the Trump administration.

I am also a feminist. I spend most of my days talking about women, mothers, sisters,

John Anderson, 2-star General w/ Winston Churchill, Omar Bradley, Field Marshal Montgomery, and others

gender, but today, I want to focus on fathers, particularly my grandfathers and my great-grandfather. The men of the “Greatest Generation” in my family carry a special significance for me today, as a resistor.

But let me first tell you about my father. He voted for Trump. I begged him not to and laid out the issues that I found troubling, including the infamous pussy-grabbing video, and my own father refused to talk to me about it. He still refuses to address why I would find it so upsetting that my own father would vote for a man who bragged about sexual assault. He dismisses my “hysteria”, making communication with him nearly impossible. So I have looked to the older generations for guidance in the void that my father’s example has left in his wake as he abandons principle for party.

Why am I a democrat? Because besides being a “liberal academic elitist snowflake,” I have a ton of military history in my family.

My great-grandfather, General John B. Anderson, was a major general in World War II. A graduate of West Point and veteran of World War I, he commanded the XVI Corps of the Army Artillery Unit. His most significant achievement was ferrying Churchill across the Rhine, despite Eisenhower’s protestations. He fought in the Ruhr Valley and liberated Roermund, in the Netherlands, where there is a street named after him. He retired after the war since he was almost completely deaf because of the roaring of the cannons. I never knew him since he died before I was born, but his figure looms large over Van Ness family lore.

My paternal grandfather, Capt. Harper “Smiling Jack” Van Ness, went to the Naval Academy and became a naval aviator. Besides flying test planes and living on a Destroyer, where he developed a particular hatred for asparagus “because it was all we had to eat for months,” he later went to work for NASA as an aeronautical engineer. After the war, he considered being an astronaut for the nascent space program before he was told that at six foot three inches, he was too tall to fit in the shuttle. When I was a little girl, I still remember visiting him at the Air and Space Museum where he worked. He was the gentlest, kindest man, an avid athlete and runner, and me and all of my siblings and my daughter all share his broad, crooked smile.

My maternal grandfather, Dr. Humphrey “Jiggs” Cordes, was also a captain in the Navy during World War II. He was stationed in the Pacific, also on a Destroyer, awaiting the order to invade Japan when he saw a strange-looking plane, the Anola Gay, only to later discover what the contents of its belly had been. I can’t imagine what he must have felt knowing what he had been spared at the hands of nuclear annihilation, the horror he had been spared and the horror it had cost so many other innocent Japanese citizens at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He wept when he told me this story because he knew that war is horror, pure and simple, not a political chess game or a means to boost one’s approval ratings.

When Jiggs returned home, he earned his Ph.D. in Classics from University of Chicago, later to be my alma mater as well, and became a Latin teacher for more than fifty years at the Latin School in Chicago.

I most clearly followed this path, the one of education, because I have a reverence for learning and a curiosity and love for knowledge. Now, nationally and in New Hampshire, we have people running the Departments of Education who know nothing about the vocation of teaching – because it is a vocation. I am underpaid. I do not receive benefits. This is what my labor is worth under the current system, according to the powers that be. I do not teach business, accounting, or science, anything related to the STEM fields. I teach humanities.

Speaking of humanities, a field that is often dismissed, considered obsolete or elitist, I think it is worth noting what Churchill said as Prime Minister, when asked, during the war effort, if the government should cut funding for the arts. His response – “Then what are we fighting for?”

Jean Genet, the French playwright and novelist who was part of the so-called “School of the Absurd”, stated that fascism is theater. Hitler and Mussolini held rallies to consolidate power and make a show of their popular support. So does Trump. When he should be leading our nation, he is campaigning for re-election. Trump is a reality tv star from a rich family who received seven deferments from Vietnam. When I see him wearing a military jacket, pandering to veterans or the troops, he seems to me an oversize boy playing soldier. He speaks about using nuclear weapons and “bombing the shit” out of ISIS. Does he have any concept of what that means or what the consequences of those actions are? A nuclear bomb does not just hit terrorists, no matter how precisely and carefully you drop it.

Being a democrat means holding this administration accountable. When Trump dropped the MOAB, the “mother of all bombs” on an ISIS cave system in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, I was waiting for class to begin and mentioned the event to some of my students as they were milling in. One student exclaimed, “Awesome!” Later, I read that Donald Trump Jr. expressed the same satisfaction that his father had fulfilled his promise to “bomb the shit out of ISIS.”

War, to many Americans, has become an abstraction. To some, it is a burden and to some, a vocation, a career. Yet regardless of how you feel about the validity of the global conflicts we are involved in as a nation, it bears noting that we have the ability to, with our nuclear arsenals, destroy all life on the planet many times over. I do not feel safe and I fear for my family, my friends, my daughter, and humanity when our commander in chief is engaging in gratuitous saber-rattling at a country with a nuclear arsenal and another unstable, megalomaniacal leader at its helm. There is a thin line between bravery and stupidity and our President is squarely on the latter side.

So why am I a Democrat? To honor the memory of these men, my family’s Greatest Generation, who fought for democracy against the dark forces of racism, antisemitism, and authoritarian rule, but also to safeguard my daughter’s future from those who would erode her freedoms, her control over her own body, her education, her ability to have a future that is based on more than empty rhetoric.

The Neorealists, Rossellini, Visconti, and others, made films to record the consequences of Fascism and Nazism on the landscape of their cities and their psyches. Like them, we must hold these Fascists accountable through a call to realism, to reality, by not forgetting what words really mean, that semantics only allow their meaning to bend only so far, and most importantly, that in the wake of true horror and destruction, words fail and actions prevail.

I have heard my forefathers’ call to action in my own and I will not blink nor look away. It is time for us to act, to save our democracy for future generations.

That is why I am a Democrat.